We now have a winner for our latest competition. The top prize goes to Tanzina with her monster, ‘Garbage’. Congratulations!

Garbage will be designed by our illustrator Rich Wake for the new Teach Your Monster to Read game “Fun With Words” and she will also receive £150 worth of Usborne books for her school.

The monster will be available as body parts for children to put together, as part of their own monster in the game.

We cannot wait to see the monster animated and ready to begin his journey!

Our judges, illustrator Rich Wake and teacher and Digital Leader Sheli Blackburn chose the winner.

Rich explains why ‘Garbage’ won the competition:

“This monster is very well designed and neatly drawn. Also, we don’t have a yellow Monster in the game yet so he will look lovely and bright in the different environments that he’ll travel to. I was also very fond of his tufty hair and cow skin pants. I think he will make a very cheerful addition to the world of Teach Your Monster to Read.”

The two equally fabulous runners up are Binta with her monster ‘Smiley’ and Devlon with his monster ‘Oro’.

Smiley was chosen because:

“We love his rainbow horns. We think he would probably live in the cloud village.”

Oro was picked because:

“He is very professionally drawn and looks like he really belongs in the game. He could be the cousin of anyone’s little monster.”

They are both beautiful and characterful designs, it was hard to miss them!

We have been overwhelmed by the awesome response to the competition and to the game over the past few weeks. It’s been really fun to see all the imaginative monsters that have come through! Thank you for spending your time creating the them and sharing them with us.

Here is an online gallery of all the fabulous entries! Enjoy!

Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words

This Autumn, join the monster on his new adventure with Teach Your Monster to Read: Fun With Words.

In Fun With Words, the monster will continue his journey through a spectacular new kingdom of hidden treasure, balloon flights and spaceship rides!

Meeting new characters along the way, such as the Hungry Word Beast, the Space Pirates and the mischievous “Trickies”, the monster is on a journey to find his lost spaceship. Throughout his adventure, the monster will collect gold stars which can be exchanged for fantastic prizes.

More information for teachers

The game is designed for children who have already mastered our first game: Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps. It complements Letters and Sounds up to the end of Phase 4.

It covers:

• Introduction and practice of new graphemes / phonemes: ch, sh, th, ng, ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, ow, oi, ear, air, ure, er
  
• Lots of blending and segmenting practice with CVC, CVCC, CCV and CCVC words, plus words with adjacent consonants and some polysyllabic words
  
• Introduction and practice of tricky words: he, she, the, to, we, me, be, was, no, go, my, you, they, her, all, are, said, so, have, like, some, come, were, there, little, one, do when, out, what
  
• Reading and comprehension of sentences and captions.
  

For updates about the launch of Teach Your Monster to Read: Fun With Words, join our Facebook group or follow us on Twitter. Alternatively email our Community Manager dannie@teachyourmonstertoread with ‘Game 2′ as the subject.

We’ve had a fantastic response to our Design a Monster Competition – over 400 entries!

We’re really excited about announcing the winner, but first we have to choose one. The unenviable task of deciding which monster will go into the next game is up to teacher and digital Leader, Sheli Blackburn (@shelibb – www.digitalleadernetwork.co.uk) and illustrator Rich Wake (www.richwake.com). It’s going to be a tough job.

Above is a very small selection of the amazing monsters we’ve received. Will it be ‘Google Pop’, ‘Jack’, ‘Bella’ or ‘Smelly’? Will the monster that likes sweets and zapping be the next star of Teach Your Monster to Read? In two days we’ll find out.

Thank you so much to all the children who have created their monsters (and the teachers and parents who have sent them in). All the entries are in the Monster Gallery on Facebook.

Do take a look through the Monsters and share them with your friends!