Our mini games are the result of hundreds of hours of work from our game developers, consultation with our experts Angela Colvert and Alison Kelly and, most importantly, play testing by our favourite users — children!
Each game is designed to target the development of fundamental phonics skills, perfect for creating a solid foundation for reading. Find out more about each of our mini games below.
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A core skill in reading, all three stages of Teach Your Monster to Read develop children's speed and accuracy of grapheme (letter) recognition. From simple letter-sound matching games in Stage 1: First Steps, to finding alternative ways of representing the same sound and alternative ways of sounding out the same letters in Stage 3 Champion Reader.
Oh no! The evil duck has captured a villager! Listen to the letter sound (phoneme) and rescue the trapped villager from the evil duck by jumping on the correct grapheme (letter) that matches.
Stage 1: First Steps
Look at the letters and fly the ship over the building blocks to listen to the letter-sounds (phonemes). Click the matching block to build the spaceship! Alternative game: Submarine builder.
Stage 1: First Steps
Stage 2: Fun with Words
Oh no! All the ducks have escaped. Listen to the letter sound (phoneme) and herd all the ducks into the matching grapheme pond. Alternative game: Herding sheep.
Stage 1: First Steps
Stage 2: Fun with Words
Collect the flowers, and they’ll tell you where to go! Jump at the flowers who will tell you the letter sound (phoneme) and look for the arrow with the matching letter (grapheme). Jump or fall to follow the arrows and collect the stars! Alternative game: Balloon Run.
Stage 1: First Steps
Stage 2: Fun with Words
Segmenting breaks words into individual phonemes, which can be written as graphemes, while blending combines these sounds to form words. These two skills are key to unlocking strong reading and writing abilities by helping kids tackle new words with confidence. A bunch of exciting minigames sprinkled throughout the three stages let children put these skills to work!
Oh no! Dr Tentacle has captured the bear. To rescue the bear, children need to segment (break down) CVC (words created using a consonant, vowel, and a consonant) words into their constituent sounds to get to the top of the building.
Stage 1: First Steps
Your monster needs fuel to get home! In this blending and segmenting game, you’ll need to find the letters that make the word. Listen to the word and match it to the correct asteroid. Shoot the right asteroids to make a word.
Stage 2: Fun with Words
Woah, your monster is falling from the sky! Collect the right balloon so they can float down safely. In this blending and segmenting game, you’ll need to find the letters that make the word. Listen to the word and match it to the correct grapheme balloon.
Stage 2: Fun with Words
To get to the next platform, help your monster find the right graphemes to build words. Listen to the word and select the correct graphemes to match the phonemes.
Stage 3: Champion Reader
You've found some magic stepping stones! Tap on the turtles to choose the correct graphemes or phonemes to build words.
Stage 3: Champion reader
Tricky Words are words that do not follow standard phonics rules and cannot be sounded out easily using regular decoding strategies. These words often have irregular spellings or include sounds that do not correspond to their usual grapheme representations.
Tickle the trickies three times and she will join you! Tricky words are introduced and rehearsed throughout all three Teach Your Monster to Read stages. The collected Trickies can be viewed in the 'Monster Customiser' menu anytime.
Stage 1: First Steps
Eight (semi-decodable) tricky words from letters and sounds will be introduced in the course of the game.
Stage 2: Fun with Words
Each tricky word has its own character. These are introduced to the monster throughout the game. The Hungry Beast game - learn the tricky words by feeding them to the beast.
Stage 3: Champion Reader
Collect the Trickies as you learn new high-frequency words. Read sentences and find the tricky words in them.
These games help support and rehearse all the skills so far in the game. These can include finding the correct grapheme to match the phoneme and identifying alternative ways of writing the same phoneme, such as /ai/ and /ay/.
The Knowledge Tree
You've found a Knowledge Tree! Listen as it introduces new grapheme - phoneme correspondences. An example of these correspondences is introducing the phoneme /ow/, which can look like the grapheme 'ou' in 'Cloud', and it can also look like 'ow' in 'Cow'.
Stage 3: Champion Reader
Ms Jumble and Ms Jangle
It's Ms Jumble and Ms Jangle! Can you help them find the right marbles? Recognise and sort different ways of sounding the same letters.
Stage 3: Champion Reader
Meteor
You've entered a meteor strike zone! Collect all the meteors with the target grapheme to match the phoneme (including different graphemes for the same phoneme), while avoiding non-target ones.
Stage 3: Champion Reader
Dragon
Oh no - the dragon is back! Defeat the dragon by identifying the target graphemes within segmented words.
Stage 3: Champion Reader
To encourage reading engagement further in a fun way, the last type of game involves reading text in pursuit of a specific goal or intention. Players need to read and understand and find information to complete a task.
Read the instructions, follow them and take the correct answer to unlock the gates and continue the adventure! These begin as short sentences such as 'Tap the crayon', into longer instructions with more steps that the player needs to carry out in sequence.
Stage 3: Champion Reader
All our games are completely FREE to play on computers for everybody via our website!
As a non-profit, this is made possible through the support of the Usborne Foundation and the proceeds we receive from app purchases. Everything we receive goes back into developing and improving our games, supporting parents and teachers, and helping more children learn through play.
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3. That’s it! You can now play all our fabulous educational games!
We recommend creating a ‘test’ player so you can try the games for yourself first. For more help, check out our online tutorials and player guides.
