The monsters have an exciting opportunity to announce!
We’re looking for teachers who can give up an hour of their time to talk about the game. We’d like to ask you what you like, what you don’t like and to show you a few new ideas for features.
We’re looking for some participants who can come to visit us (at the famous Usborne Publishing offices in London) and some from elsewhere in the world that can talk to us via Skype.
In return we can offer £150 of free Usborne books, a credit on the website, and we’ll cover your expenses if you’re travelling in to meet us in person.
So, if you’ve used the game, know it relatively well and would be interested in helping out, please get in touch with us at [email protected] and we’ll let you know more.
The monsters are really looking forward to meeting you!
Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words has now launched. Hooray!
This game is designed for children who have mastered our first game: Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps and takes your monster on a brand new journey through a spectacular 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 quest to find his lost spaceship. Throughout his adventure, the monster will collect gold stars which can be exchanged for fantastic prizes.
And just like “First Steps”, the new game is completely free!
The game features the voices of Simon Farnaby from BBC’s Horrible Histories, and for the first time, Mr Thorne from ‘Mr Thorne Does Phonics’. Exciting!
Find out more
Compare the educational content of the “Fun With Words” with “Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps
Find out what the game covers in the full Game Overview (PDF)
Play the demo
How to play
You can access the game through your usual Teach Your Monster to Read account – just sign in and follow the instructions.
Get in touch and let us know what you think of the new game, we’d love to hear your thoughts!
We’re thrilled to announce that our new game, Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words will feature the wonderful Mr Thorne from Mr Thorne does Phonics!
Mr Thorne will be voicing the letter sounds and words in the new game, bringing his original, clear and engaging voice (and of course his enthusiasm) to Teach Your Monster to Read. It’s going to be an unstoppable partnership!
Mr Thorne is a UK-based teacher whose highly-respected YouTube site Mr Thorne Does Phonics contains over 500 literacy videos and has fast become an internet sensation.
His materials have been viewed in schools around the world, and his reading and spelling apps have been in the top 30 educational apps in over 50 countries worldwide. We’re very lucky to have him on the team!
For more about about Mr Thorne go to YouTube or www.mrthorne.com
Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words will be available to play next Wednesday. Watch this Space!
The Parachute Game is an exciting new mini-game in Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words.
Your monster holds tight to a parachute as he floats down through the clouds. While floating down, he has to collect the right letters and sounds to make up the word before he reaches the ground safely.
The monster is rewarded with stars which can be exchanged for clothing, equipment and food in the shop.
This game helps the player practise blending and segmenting of individual words.
Click on this link for more information about Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun with Words.
Who is The Shopkeeper?
Scariness 1 Speed 3 Special Powers 2 Size 7 Appetite 5
At the end of each level your monster meets a very friendly shopkeeper. This shopkeeper offers the monster a chance to buy some goodies with the stars he has collected on his journey. This part of the game is one of the monster’s favourites!
The shopkeeper sells all kinds of equipment, food and clothing, from bright yellow wings, to a bucket and spade, a new brown belt or a large top hat. The monster can only purchase items that he can afford so he must choose wisely or save his stars for the next journey.
Happy shopping!
Click on this link for more information about Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun with Words.
Who are The Trickies?
Scariness 3 Speed 10 Special Powers 7 Size 4 Appetite 2
The Trickies are the speediest characters in the new Teach Your Monster to Read game. They appear in the villages and along the journey and pop up out of nowhere and they don’t stay still for long!
Your monster is excited if he finds a Tricky as one of the main aims of the game is to collect them all.
The Trickies each carry a tricky word, such as: he, she, no, go, have, like. They jump into sentences when the monster comes near them. The monster must practice the Trickie’s sentence 3 times to get the tricky word right. It’s hard work, but once the monster has practised the sentence the Trickie becomes the monster’s friend and stays with him until the end of the game
The Trickies love it when your monster gets the words right and are really excited to be reunited with all their Tricky friends!
Click on this link for more information about Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun with Words.
Down on the farm, the ducks have waddled out of the pond and are looking a bit lost.
This new game is a twist on the early Sheep game from Teach Your Monster to Read: First Steps. The aim of this game is to listen to the sound (phoneme), then put all the ducks in the right pond.
But beware, if you get the sound wrong then all the ducks leave the pond and you’ll have to round them up again!
Find out more about the new game Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words
What is The Hungry Word Beast?
Scariness 5 Speed 2 Special Powers 8 Size 9 Appetite 10
The Hungry Word Beast is Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Word’s biggest character – she is ten times the size of the monster! She is orange with a very large yellow mouth. Her appetite is huge and she loves to eat words for breakfast, lunch and dinner – but only the correct words.
She makes a lot of noise while eating and if a word isn’t right, she’ll spit it out in disgust! Bleeurrgghhh!
The Hungry Word Beast appears at the end of every journey. She is big and loud, but not as scary as she seems. You can keep The Hungry Word Beast happy by feeding her all the right tricky words. Listen carefully or look at her body and you’ll find a clue to which word she wants to eat. Good luck!
Click here for more information about Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun with Words.
The Space Race is a new minigame in Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words.
The monster is flying a rocket through a colourful star-filled universe. He’s aiming to find fuel for his spaceship by making words. He can only do this by listening for the right sounds or looking for the right letters and collecting them, building the word as he goes.
The Monster is rewarded with a stream of stars, which can be used in the shop to buy clothing, food and tools. This game helps the player practice blending and segmenting of individual words.
As the game progresses, each race gets harder, introducing more complicated words and new letters and sounds to practice.
Read more about Teach Your Monster to Read 2: Fun With Words
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!
