'Teach Your Monster To Read' - game review and competition

I came across a quote recently: 'Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.' This seems very true - I've been sharing picture books with my little boy, who turned 4 in August, since he was born.

But when it comes to phonics, I haven't really known where to start. To be honest, I have been scared of mispronouncing things and causing confusion when my son starts school.

So yesterday afternoon I sat with my son on my lap and we tried out a new game called 'Teach Your Monster to Read'. This game is absolutely free and we really enjoyed playing it. I'm pretty sure we both learned a lot too, though we were having so much fun that it didn't seem like hard work.

Whether it was herding sheep into the right pen:

Playing a retro platform game with flowers telling you which direction to go in:

Or trying to rescue the princess by choosing the right sounds to climb the tower:

Here are some of the points I thought were really good about the 'Teach Your Monster to Read' game:

• very strong link between the sounds and the letters
• your child can choose which games they play and which prizes they are playing for
• it features the voice of Simon Farnaby, from Horrible Histories

So we will definitely be playing this again!

Draw a Monster Competition

The folks at Teach Your Monster to Read would love to see your little monsters’ monster designs.

They’re giving away £200 of Usborne books to the monsters the judges would most like to have as a pet.

For a chance to win, they’re asking children to draw (or paint or build) a monster and send a photograph of the finished work to go in their online gallery.

The monster can be one from the Teach Your Monster to Read game or from your imagination – it can be friendly, spooky, scary or silly!

The judges will be Cathy James from www.nurturestore.co.uk plus her two daughters – they will have the hard task of choosing the winning pet monsters.

Good luck!

Prizes:

1st prize: £150 worth of Usborne books of your choice*

2nd and 3rd prizes: £25 worth of Usborne books of your choice*

* Subject to availability, of course!

How to enter 

Send a photograph of your monster’s monster drawing to competitions@teachyourmonstertoread.com

Deadline is 5pm on Friday 9th November 2012.

The winners will be announced on Friday 16th November 2012

For full competition details - check out the Teach Your Monster to Read blog.

Disclosure: we will be sent 3 books of our choice from the Usbourne: Very First Reading Series as a thank you for publicising the competition.