(5 minute read)
In this behind-the-scenes, we caught up with Game Designer and Developer Matt Sayers. Matt has been with Teach Your Monster for over four years, working on many of our apps and games. With a particular focus on Number Skills, we asked Matt a few questions about him, his work with us and his work on the development of Number Skills into the great game it is today!
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m an interactive developer based in Brighton on the (currently) sunny south coast of the UK, and have worked in games and e-learning for the past twenty-something years, primarily in the children’s entertainment and education sector. I used to work purely on web-based projects, for clients such as CBeebies, CBBC, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.
How did you get started as a game designer/developer?
I started working in website design in the 90s, and then a software called Flash emerged, which, at the time, opened up the web to a world of fun and interactivity that hadn’t previously been possible. It also provided me with a route into programming in a very visual and creative way, which very much appealed as I didn’t have a traditional computer science background.
What do you do at Teach Your Monster?
I work on designing and developing our games and apps, covering pretty much all aspects of the user-facing experience, from making nice bouncy bubbles, fun interactions and entertaining animations, to ensuring the less glamorous but equally important things like user login and saving game data functions correctly.
What do you like most about the job? What is hard about it?
Things I love:
- The creativity and satisfaction of creating fun things for kids to play with that are not only enjoyable but also help them to learn really important foundational skills that will help them throughout their lives.
- The fact that the educational aspect is a fundamental cornerstone of the game design, rather than being simply tacked on to a standard video game.
- Similarly, working for a not-for-profit organisation where success is determined primarily by the educational impact of the products, rather than the financial success and growth of the company (although this obviously also counts if we want to continue making impact!)
Things that are hard:
- The technical challenge of ensuring everything works for all our products and users across all the platforms we support (Apple, Android, Amazon devices, as well as the web) is hard to keep up with, especially as we are a small and creatively focused team. We are constantly trying to add new features and content while ensuring that users on older versions are not left behind.
- We also have to consider the age and motor skills of our target age range. Things that most game developers take for granted such as being able to use a mouse to drag and drop things on the screen, or text-based feedback and instructions, are often not appropriate techniques for us to use.
What is the process of creating a mini-game, and how are you involved? Who else is involved?
Before we do anything else, we talk to teachers and educational experts about what the key concepts are in a subject and how they teach them in the classroom, particularly any physical games and activities they might use to help communicate and test these concepts.
We then design interactions, activities, and games to achieve all the above in a way that is also intuitive and easy to use for children of the target age range, without requiring constant assistance from an adult (although we also encourage children to play along with their grown-ups). We start off with simple prototypes and test them in classrooms before developing them into fully-functioning, beautiful-looking games.
Can you explain how you’ve improved a mini-game and why?
We are constantly testing our games and responding to feedback from teachers, experts and the children themselves.
For example, in Number Skills, there is a game where the child helps their monster, who is dangling by its feet, pick up the correct number of items and drop them down a hole (the Claw game). This was good fun, but some children found it confusing, as once you’d put too many things in the hole, there was no way to correct your mistake without pulling the lever to submit your incorrect answer.
So we made it possible to remove items from the hole before submitting your answer, which was also fun and very intuitive for some users but was deemed by our experts to be potentially confusing and too advanced a concept for that stage of the game.
So we ended up just giving the ‘incorrect’ feedback as soon as they’d dropped too many items in the hole, and reset the level so they could try again - which, based on our analytics data, has resulted in less frustration and greater engagement with the game.
Out of all the things you've worked on at Teach Your Monster, what are you most proud of?
On a personal level, I’m really pleased with how the Bubbles game in Number Skills turned out, as a fun way of composing and decomposing numbers in a very intuitive way.
As part of the Teach Your Monster organisation, the sheer number of children who have played and enjoyed our games, whilst at the same time benefiting from our educational approach, is just amazing!
(3 minute read)
We have a lot of new parents and teachers starting to use our games this year, so we thought we’d get down to the basics for this article, with a quick introduction to phonics, and some engaging phonics activities suitable for both in-class and out-of-class use.
Phonics is the method of teaching reading and writing through the relationship of the sound (phoneme) and the written letter or letters (grapheme). For example, the ‘ai’ in the word ‘rain’ makes an /ay/ sound. This method of teaching helps children to decode words by breaking them down into their individual sounds, making it easier for them to read and spell. Although there are different programmes of teaching phonics around the world, many of them follow similar methods.
In my experience with early years classrooms, phonics is a daily practice, with lessons and activities centred around the letter-sounds they are currently learning. Lots of showing the letters and hearing the sounds, as well as more physical activities such as walk-the-word to help children remember those letter-sound relationships, or to use the technical term, grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPCs).
Our game, Teach Your Monster to Read, has been popular with teachers for over a decade for its engaging approach to teaching phonics. Whether used as a whole class activity, for one-to-one or group intervention or independent play, its repetitive structure and gamified way of teaching help reinforce those GPCs taught in class. Teachers can share the players login details with the family, making sure the progress they make in class is continued at home.
As part of our support for new teachers and parents, we’ve created a new FREE printable progress chart for Stage 1 of Teach Your Monster to Read - First Steps. Feel free to download, print and stick it on the fridge to get your kids excited about learning new letter-sounds. Mark each new letter sound learned with a smiley face or the ultimate honour… a sticker!
We’ve got loads of other printables to help with phonics, and have come up with a few ideas on how to gameify them even more. Print out and laminate (optional) our Phonics Flashcards to play these games:
Flip the waffle - Select a few that your child is working on. Place them face down on the floor and give the kid a spatula. Tell them to flip the waffle and say the letter-sound. If the child says the correct letter-sound, they get to cook the waffle! Have a pan or basket nearby for their collected waffles. Use the flashcards without the picture prompts to make it more challenging.
Push the button - Select a few GPCs that your child is working on. Roll up balls of playdough and place them on or in front of the card. Let your child press each ‘button’ as they sound it out for you. Roll out the balls to start fresh!
Magic Monster Squares - Adapted this idea from playdoughtoplato - use our flashcards, put the focus one in the centre, draw some letters around it to form simple words. Keep to Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words for younger children such as ‘sun’, hat, bus, etc. For lists of common CVC words, look at this useful article.
As a final note, we also wanted to highlight some phonics activities we wrote about in older blogs to use, share and give to fellow parents and reception/pre-k teachers:
HAPPY PHONICS LEARNING!
Kay Leathers, Ex-primary teacher and freelance consultant for TYM
(3 minute read)
As teachers well know, coming back to start a new class can be hectic, to say the least. Amongst seating plans, lesson plans and establishing rules within the classroom, the children are also finding their place in their new environment. Summer was long and free, and returning to the classroom can be quite an adjustment. Understandably, this process isn’t quick or simple, and friction between classmates is often inevitable until things settle into place.
Establishing good student relationships is one of those things that is important to get right early on. Kindness can reduce stress, improve our mood, increase self-esteem, happiness and life satisfaction, create a sense of belonging (very important for a classroom environment), reduce loneliness and make the world a happier place by motivating others to be kind too!
Fostering kindness in the classroom is definitely a challenge, especially after a particularly fraught playtime! Here we share some tips to help start the year off in the kindest way…
- Kindness to self
It’s important that students are reminded to be kind to themselves first. Doing a little something for themselves each day, and giving some self-praise will help them feel good and fill them up with enough energy to be kind to others. Being kind to themselves when it's much harder, such as when they make a mistake in their work, is the most important time to remind them of this. Phrases such as ‘mistakes are proof you are trying’ and positive language like this are examples that language teachers can model to their pupils.
- Kindness to others
Kindness can be a bit of an abstract concept to small children, so it can be a struggle to see where to start with being kind to others! Encourage them to start small and give practical examples. Acts such as picking something up for someone, opening the door for others, or making sure the classroom is tidy for your teacher are all small acts of kindness that help make someone else's day shiny and happy!
Once they’ve practised a few of these, this can lead to even bigger acts of kindness, such as playing with someone new at playtime, or drawing a picture for someone who needs cheering up. Whether big or small, these acts will make you feel good and make the classroom a nicer place to be.
- Remembering that all things need kindness
Big or small, old or young, everyone needs kindness. Showing a bit of patience for someone who takes a little more time to walk, bringing a cupcake to your neighbour or helping a trapped spider out of the house with a cup, are all great acts of kindness!
Want to bring more kindness into your classroom or home? Try these thoughtful and fun resources:
Kay Leathers, Ex-primary teacher and freelance consultant for Teach Your Monster
Learning to read English with Teach Your Monster
(5 minute read)
We’ve had many reports that our phonics game has been very supportive for teachers working with students who have English as an Additional Language (EAL). We wanted to find out more, so we caught up with EAL specialist teacher Adon Polatka. Currently working in an elementary school (K-5) in Northern Kentucky, Adon has over 75 active EAL students, with 18 different languages represented in his caseload.
Having first downloaded the game in 2015, we were interested in what keeps Adon using it with his EAL students year after year. The answer came down to three key benefits: it supports foundational reading skills, adds a trusted and helpful tool to his teaching practice and builds important resilience in learners.
Supporting foundational reading skills:
Teach Your Monster to Read is built on phonics progression and reading pedagogy, supporting children through the very first stages of learning letter-sounds, all the way to reading short sentences. A crucial phase that often comes a bit later for EAL students, Adon supports children in catching up to the stages of their native English-speaking peers, using the game to help.
“I used it a lot for my newcomers and younger primary students, and so for first, second, third graders who are new to our country and new to learning English and what the letter names are, what the sounds are that they make, and so I used the game as support so that they could start understanding the letters that they're seeing in their classroom, and just found that it was really helpful for my students, so… brilliant.”
Going deeper into this, Adon believes the interactive nature of the game enhances students’ engagement and retention.
“The basic foundation of reading - what are the letters, what are the sounds - the game covers that in a fun way. It helps them to learn. They're more motivated to learn and be engaged with it, as opposed to watching a YouTube video that's just going over what the letters are.
They're not just sitting and receiving, they're actually doing something to learn and be exposed to that content, which I think is unique, you know, like they talk about putting pen to paper and journaling - the action does something with your brain structure.
There's something I think that happens extra for them that is motivating, and they're just more engaged as a learner, which helps them to acquire that skill and that content knowledge.”
A trusted and helpful tool:
The game was designed for children to engage with it independently of adult input. For Adon, this support enables him to implement a complementary approach between game-based learning and direct teaching in his English Language Arts groups. While he works one-on-one with one student, he trusts the game to support and progress the other students.
“I'd have four or five students on the program, and then I would pull one of them at a time, and we'd work on either sight words or letter name fluency, letter sound fluency, a reading passage, to see where they're at with their decoding skills.
And so, while I would work with one student, the other students would be on that program just to get that support.”
Furthermore, unique game-like structures promote continued engagement with the learning. Adon states that the children love that they can collect rewards on their adventures in game:
“They like getting the stars so they can modify their monster, which is really helpful. They know that if they keep working hard on it, they'll get more stars, they can modify their monster and get fun things."
Building resilience:
As well as supporting the kids in learning how to read, the minigames encourage children to keep trying, build resilience and increase reading stamina.
“I think, a good productive struggle for them, are the games where they have to hop across lily pads, and the word is ‘ring’, so they have to identify what's the ‘r’ sound, what's the short ‘i’ sound, what's the ‘ng’ sound.
They run into trouble with some of those blends or digraphs, short vowel sounds, but it's really helpful for them because then they have to start over, and it repeats that. It gives them a chance to keep practising until they understand it.
I think a lot of our students struggle with that grit and resilience as learners, and so I, as a teacher, appreciate them just practising and working through it. They know, ‘if I get this, I'll get to the end of this particular minigame, and then I'll be able to progress through the level’, so it's a fun struggle for them.”
For our final note, we asked Adon, “What does Teach Your Monster mean to you?”
“Teach Your Monster to Read is helpful support for my students, that is fun and engaging. It's educational, it's supportive of them, and they're trying to acquire skills in order to be able to read, in order to be more successful as a student in their classroom. I really appreciate it.
I enjoy seeing my students engage with it, and have fun with it, while learning. As teachers, we want our students to learn, but to see them enjoy that process is a great reward for me, so I'm really grateful for that.”
(5 minute read)
When we make games at Teach Your Monster, it may look like our games arrive fully formed, but the journey from idea to what you get in your hands can be a trail fraught with danger, wrong turns and head-scratching questions! How do we navigate all this and achieve the level of polish seen in Teach Your Monster? Well, part of the answer is YOU…
At Teach Your Monster, creating educational games that are engaging, inclusive and educational requires many different parts coming together to create one beautiful game! As well as coding and design, the process is rooted in a deep understanding of our users. User testing, continuous feedback, and an ongoing development process are how we ensure that our games are always improving and meeting the needs of all our users, child and adult alike.
To help us understand more, we caught up with Carla Vij, our user researcher at Teach Your Monster. Carla has been a user researcher for Teach Your Monster for about six years. Of her work, she tells us:
“I go into schools and conduct playtests with groups of children and individuals depending on the activity. I also speak to our Teach Your Monster users, conduct surveys and interviews and present feedback to the team so that we can consider any changes and implement any additional features based on our users needs.”
At Teach Your Monster, our philosophy is to ‘make brilliant games that kids and adults love’. To do this, we must first understand the needs of our users. Our audience is diverse, comprising both adults (teachers, parents, and home educators) and children of all ages and needs—the players.
Carla explains that this dual approach is essential for crafting games that work for everyone involved:
"User research is understanding the needs of our users. Not just the adults who install and set up the game for the children, but we also have an important audience, the kids themselves."
We use the data and feedback, alongside research and expert knowledge to inform our choices when making a game as well as coming up with brand new ideas and concepts, innovating new ways to make the most impact.
Part of taking these creative risks is testing to ensure that they are working in the way we intend. Once we’ve identified a need through user research, tested a concept with the pedagogy (educational strategy) and got feedback, it’s time for playtesting. This stage is crucial in shaping the gameplay experience.
Carla takes the game (or parts of the game) into schools and homes, to observe how children interact with the game. This phase is not just about making sure the game is fun—it's about ensuring it works for all children, regardless of background, language, or learning ability.
"I go into schools and conduct playtests with groups of children and individuals depending on the activity. I also speak to our Teach Your Monster users, conduct surveys and interviews, and present feedback to the team."
During these playtests, Carla observes for any usability issues, challenges in game mechanics, or signs of disengagement.
"Our games are designed so that children have fun and are engaged, which is super important, but also the learning component is always embedded, so the children are learning whilst having fun. Sometimes when the child plays the game, it's very different to when the adult plays the game. We observe how they play, what's going on for them as they engage with the game, and then we then take those observations back to the team, project manager, and developers, and we rework any elements that needs review.”
If a particular mini-game or learning activity isn’t hitting the mark, Carla’s feedback allows the development team to make adjustments. Sometimes this is making changes when some element hasn't worked as intended or had the desired result, which may lead to a change in approach. Sometimes it's just a small tweak, sometimes much more. Every change improves the whole experience, getting closer to a game we feel is ready for release.
Even after a game is released, the work doesn’t stop. Carla explains how the team revisits older games to address any feedback from players, ensuring that each game evolves over time:
"We don't just playtest as we release new updates. We sometimes revisit parts of the game that we may have received feedback about, or, for example, a user interview may have highlighted something that requires review.
We would then take that part of the game out into schools or review it with some users at home, and observe and understand what changes may be required. We would then make the necessary adjustments after careful review and consideration with the product team.
That's why our users are always getting updates, because we're always making improvements.”
We asked Carla for an example of how this iterative process has directly impacted one of our games.
“When I was playtesting Number Skills, we didn't have a tutorial at the beginning of the minigames, so I played the part of Queenie Bee, now the player's guide through the game. We reviewed the playtest observations along with the required directions, and we reflected on how we take the role of the teacher, who's not going to be sitting with them the whole time, and incorporate that voice into the game. As it's fundamental that they play independently, the team came up with the Queenie B tutorial concept, and it's been very effective at onboarding children.
Even if the child doesn't listen to all the instructions, you often see that they're following the demo with their hands. And then the next time they play, they understand what to do. In effect, they're able to access the learning part of the game because that usability is there, and it's very fluid. The tutorial was pivotal, and also a unique feature in our games, I felt, because we didn't have that feature in the other games.”
As you can see, the process of creating games at Teach Your Monster is deeply collaborative, ever-evolving and user-centred. Everyone who plays our games helps us improve and make our games better. Through an ongoing playtesting and feedback loop, the team ensures that each game is designed to make the biggest positive impact on our most important users - children.
Kay Leathers, freelance consultant for Teach Your Monster
(3 minute read)
We get a lot of requests at Teach Your Monster for what our players want in our games, but we get an AWFUL lot demanding new chapters in Reading for Fun...
★★★★★ Best game ever but needs a new chapter · I love this app so much!
"The chapters are really funny with the goblin and the evil duck! But can you add chapter 5 soon, that will be very lovely”
★★★★★ Chapter 5. I'm also your biggest fan!
"Dear Teach Your Monster teams, we are really excited for chapter 5! We have some cool ideas about the goblin and the evil duck can’t wait to see what you come up with!”
Well, we have exciting news! We are very pleased to announce that Reading for Fun Chapter 5 has arrived!
Reading for Fun is our follow-on game from Teach Your Monster to Read, for children who have mastered their phonics and are confident at reading sentences. The great thing about Reading for Fun is that any sentence on-screen can be tapped or clicked, and it will be read aloud in the game, so even less-confident readers are supported with independent reading. With four extensive chapters until now, Reading for Fun has had 35 million plays in total with over 9 million books read.
Well, our team has been working hard over the past few months to bring this additional chapter, full of mystery and lots of reading opportunities, including delivering invites, reading master plans and even a brand new book! The latest chapter has five new parts of the story revealing a BIG secret about the Book-Eating Goblin… Can your monster and the villagers work together and distract the evil duck long enough to save the day?
As well as Chapter 5, a new book is unlocked! The Book-Eating Dragon is a new book by Berbank Green and Rich Wake, all about a mad and misunderstood dragon and his terrible eating habits… play and find out how the villagers help the dragon through his woes. Complete Chapter 5 to earn “The Book-Eating Dragon” to add to your monster’s library – an exciting new reward for brave readers!
Tell your kids to check out the new chapter and make new reading friends in Reading For Fun today!
Alex Goss, Product Manager for Reading for Fun
(3 minute read)
At Teach Your Monster, we’re always looking for new ways to get more monster time in our day. So we thought about how great it would be to have some monster time without having to be on-screen - that’s where our printable resources come in. But just how to get the games off the screen and on to paper…?
We wanted to try this with our Number Skills minigames, adapting them into fun, hands-on activities that could be played either in the classroom or at home.
Drawing on my knowledge of the Kagan Cooperative Learning principle of ‘creating cooperative learning opportunities’ for kids, whilst sticking to the Teach Your Monster belief that learning should be both enjoyable and educational, making these activities into playable partner games seemed like a natural fit.
To begin, I used the original game graphics, simplifying them for easier understanding and to ensure they could be printed efficiently. Then it was onto the task of tackling the game mechanics and adapting them for a non-digital format. The transition from screen-based games to paper-and-counter versions required thoughtful consideration, especially when it came to keeping the spirit of the games intact.
One example of this is the Rollercoaster Game, which focuses on number bonds to 10. In its original digital minigame, one player would be presented with a choice of two numbers in order to complete the number bond to make a number up to 10.
In the paper version, a more collaborative approach was needed. One partner chooses a number for the other to create inside the number frame using counters. This setup adds a greater element of problem-solving, making the experience slightly more challenging. Thankfully, with two brains working together, this challenge becomes a fun and cooperative task!
As well as the Rollercoaster Game Number Bonds to 10, some of our other minigames have been adapted into partner games too:
Bumper Cars Game Numbers to 10 - This game helps students practice recognising numbers to 10 using printable sheets and counters. It’s perfect for reinforcing foundational math skills in a hands-on way.
Monster Trucks Game Numbers to 20 - Like bumper cars, but with higher numbers! This activity helps children practice counting to 20.
Rollercoaster Number Bonds to 20 - A continuation of the original Rollercoaster Game, this version challenges students to practice number bonds to 20. Again, the game is designed to be played with a partner, reinforcing teamwork and collaboration.
Dino Dash Arrays Game - practice arrays in a fun and engaging way. Based on the popular Dino Dash minigame, it can be played with printable resources to help children visualize and understand the concept of arrays.
Click here to see and download and play our fun Number Skills games today and try them out with your kids!
Kay Leathers, freelance consultant for Teach Your Monster and ex-primary school teacher!
(2 minute read)
It’s that time of year again in the UK - the sun is making its way back through the gray of winter and paying us more than a kindly visit. April is also ‘Stress Awareness Month’, and with increasing links between growing produce and mental well-being, we think it's a good time to get out in the garden or grow some yummy things on your windowsill with your kids. It’s more than just a fun activity—it’s a little bit of everyday magic.
They’ll learn that good things take time, that plants need care (and the occasional pep talk), and that tiny actions—like watering a seed—can lead to big results. Watching something grow because they nurtured it? That’s some powerful confidence-building.
When our team was discussing the next steps for Adventurous Eating, it felt natural for us to introduce ‘the growing game’, where kids get to see the part before the food arrives on their plate. In the growing game, kids encourage their monster to plant and water seeds until they grow big enough for harvesting. Once harvested, the seeds are prepped to be fed to our hungry monster Bub!
In the real world, growing fruit and veg connects kids to where food actually comes from—and it might just turn your picky eater into a proud produce snacker. It also serves as an introduction to many early science topics. It is a hands-on way to learn about seasons, life cycles, and ecosystems without even really trying.
More than anything, gardening is about making memories. We asked some of our monsters here at Teach Your Monster HQ, and they certainly had some fond memories of growing plants as kids, including one 1st prize-winning daffodil grower (in 1980)!
One of our game developers shared this memory:
“I won the tallest sunflower competition, which was grown in my grandad's back garden. We had a photo in Thornbury's local paper with me on his shoulders next to the flower to demonstrate its AWESOME HEIGHT. My memory is hazy, but I strongly suspect that my grandad did all the work here. As a result, I won a bird table, which is exactly what every 7-year-old wants, if you ask me.”
Another shared a memory of growing cress in an empty eggshell with a face. Well, we thought this was an absolutely fabulous idea, so we came up with our own monster version: Grow your own Cress Monster!
Cress is super easy, quick to grow and delicious in a sandwich, making it a rewarding growing experience to have with your kids. All you need is some cress seeds, an egg, some cotton wool and scissors. The cress should sprout within 7 days and be ready to harvest in just a few weeks!
Download your ‘Grow your own Cress Monster’ instructions here.
(4 minute read)
We asked Adam Samuel, a class teacher at Abbott Alphege Academy, about ‘reading for pleasure’ and how our game, Teach Your Monster Reading for Fun, connects the worlds of reading for pleasure and technology.
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Adam Samuel. I am a class teacher at Abbot Alphege Academy.I currently teach a year three-four class.
I'm a jack of all trades in school. The beautiful thing about being a primary school teacher is that you do a bit of everything. So I'm also the computing subject lead and modern foreign language lead. So I'm not the reading lead, but I am passionate about reading.
That's the nice thing about being a primary school teacher is you get to share a love and a passion for multiple things with the children, rather than just one.
How important do you feel reading for pleasure is for kids?
So important! It's a way of creating new worlds and new experiences. A lot of children can get overwhelmed with the world and with life. Reading a book, having the opportunity to lose yourself in someone else’s creation or world, whether it be Julia Donaldson, Rachel Bright or Jim Field, is an escape. Children need to be given the opportunity to escape into these worlds to have a broader appreciation for life in general, and it develops a love and passion for books.
What struggles do the kids in your class experience in reading for pleasure?
Access to books. We have a nice library at school, and we have a local library, but one of the biggest struggles is maintaining that at home. We don't know what they (the kids) have at home and what their access is like at home.
Ensuring they have access to a wide range of books is another struggle. Showing them how to engage with books and maintaining that engagement as well. It's quite easy for some children to get hooked on one genre, which is great, but also allows them an opportunity to broaden that reading passion.
Why can it be hard to instil a love of reading in young children?
I think with young children, we're constantly battling the modern world. Technology is always offering new and exciting things for children to be doing, whether it's a new game to play or a new media platform to engage with. Picking up a book is probably the least of their interests. So I think it's important for us to find new ways of ensuring that children maintain their love and interest in reading.
Can you tell us about your experience with Teach Your Monster Reading for Fun?
Teach Your Monster Reading for Fun is absolutely fantastic in ensuring that children maintain a passion for reading and are exposed to a wide range of texts. It's engaging. It's fun. And it crosses two worlds. It crosses the world of technology with the world of books. Today, it’s really important that we bring those two together. Otherwise, we'll just have kids lost in games, without developing essential skills, such as reading.
How does the game help you as a teacher with reading for pleasure?
Reading for Fun helps as a teacher because it gives children an engaging way of accessing books that's different to just going into the library or a bookshop. It's quite easy to get lost and overwhelmed by too many books. And what's nice with Reading for Fun is that it's a smaller number of books that they can engage with over whatever time frame they want. They get to do little jobs and little activities within the game that allow them to do more than just reading. So they are reading without necessarily always knowing that they're reading, so it's multifaceted, which is great.
The other nice thing about Reading for Fun is the fact that they earn the books incrementally, and they get to earn them as rewards and collect them in a library. So when they go into their home, you can see the books piling up on their bookshelves, just like they might at home. They can go into their bookshelf and select the book they want to read that they've earned as a reward for these jobs, which is really nice.
Do you have any special tips for other teachers on how to integrate it into their classroom practice?
My tip for other teachers is to download Teach Your Monster Reading for Fun, give the children some logins, and see how much they engage with and have fun with it. It will change your day.
Also download the login details for each child, stick it in the front of their read and record books. Send it home so that they can engage with it at home as well as at school.
Do you recommend that parents use the game at home, and if so, how?
I would. It's a great way of engaging your children to read and exposing them to a wide range of books. It's also really handy if you want to distract your children with a book in the car on a long journey. Or maybe you're going away on holiday and you want the children to be quiet for a little bit, and it's a nice way of engaging them and keeping them occupied while you're out and about.
It doesn't need to be used for long. Even just 10 to 20 minutes a day could be the difference between a child who is engaged with reading and a child who's not, and the child who's passionate for reading and a child who's not.
This article was just a snippet of our larger case study interview, which you can read here.
(3 minute read)
We’re always happy to hear how our teachers use our games for the maximum effect, and as many teachers return from their half terms here in the UK, we thought it would be a good time to share a few different ideas on how teachers around the world use and integrate Teach Your Monster games in the classroom.
The following suggestions can be a 5-minute warm-up, a time-filler, or even a way to jazz up your full lesson with a whole hour of learning…
Carpet time
During carpet time, the teacher can select a game to demonstrate playing on the interactive whiteboard and then allow the children to take turns or come up in pairs to play.
If you’d like to lead the learning (and keep bottoms on carpets!), you can give each child a whiteboard to use and ask the children questions like:
“Which number comes next? Write it in secret on your whiteboard” (Number Skills)
“How do you write this grapheme? Can you think of any other ways to write it?” (Teach Your Monster to Read)
They can respond on whiteboards and show you when they’ve finished.
Use our game Reading for Fun to select a book and read together as a class for a calming activity. Teachers can be pretty hands-off with this if you get a ‘lucky helper’ from the class to turn the page, and it is perfect if you need 5 minutes to set up for the next activity of the day.
Use for individual learning (where children have access to individual devices or laptops)
Set up children with their own profiles and let them take their monster through the game—this allows kids to play at their own pace and recap necessary skills. For brand new players, you can demonstrate the log-in and game on the interactive whiteboard first, then allow them to explore independently.
One of our super fans, teacher Lori Cash, recommends peer-to-peer help for new players or selecting game ‘prefects’ to teach other kids how to play.
Teachers can ask children to go to ‘Practice Mode’ during individual play for a particular skill, game, or number, providing targeted practice on weaker skills.
Use in a carousel, centres or ‘learning stations’
If you like to set up ‘stations’ for learning, one station could be set up for ‘e-learning ’ with devices to practice a specific subject using one of our games. If you’re not sure what ‘stations’ are, read more about them in this handy article.
For reading time, this station could be Teach Your Monster to Read for early readers, or Reading for Fun for more progressed readers.
For math lessons, this station could be set up with Number Skills, either with specific goals in mind using ‘Practice Mode’, or more of free play time through the adventure mode. We’ve provided a handy printable for you to download and print for your focused Number Skills station here.
We also have a whole bunch of handy printables for the other stations in class too, find those here.
Reward time
The best part is that playing our games feels like reward time — kids love iPads, and what better thing to do with reward time than some more stealthy learning?
Another teacher, Adam Samuel, recommends using the game after break times.
“I often use it to settle in back down after break time or lunch time. It's a really nice way to gently bring them back in after what could be a nice fraught break or lunch!”
I hope this has provided you with some new ideas for using the Teach Your Monster games in the classroom. We’re always looking for ways to help our teachers out so if you’d like to share your ideas on how you use Teach Your Monster in the classroom, please drop us a message at [email protected]. Happy teaching!
Kay Leathers, Ex-Primary teacher and freelance consultant
