Teach Your Monster to Read
reviews and complaints

I am a homeschooling momma and my 6 year old daughter is loving this app. She keeps telling me how much fun it is. I have noticed her using the sounds she learns during the game, later during story time and lessons. One concern was the limited practice for each sound but the new added practice material is fantastic. I love the ability to pick any 1-6 sounds she needs to work on.
I only have 2 issues: 1. is the level of background noise compared to the sound of the letters. Some are difficult to hear. And turns it into a guessing game. And 2. I wish there was a spot to press for them to repeat the word or sound being asked for. I like to try out the game and noticed the third level has this feature but level 2 does not.

My 5 year old loves designing her monster. Actually, she’s obsessed! She’s a bit addicted to playing so she can gather more stars to dress her monster up. She plays the game as if she’s secretly gotten away with doing something. I feel like in the 2 days she’s played, she’s learned lore about phonics and letter recognition than a whole year of being in school. I absolutely recommend this game for preschoolers and kindergarteners.

Side note, for those in the US, as other reviews have mentioned, some, maybe just a few, of the phonics are different sounding. When she comes across those, I let her know how different countries/places pronounce things differently and I try to help her find the correct letter and move on. Gives me a chance to review it with her.

This has hands down been one of our best apps. My son is 4 and on the 3rd level/game. There are a few items I think could be tweaked...the running game...my son was too young to time jumps when it came along. You can just wait and eventually you will win. ><
There are constant updates and added content. The only thing I would like to see added is writing. A moveable alphabet to practice and writing with a stylus or finger. One comment on level 3, I notice my kid guessing a lot. He knows what parts he can “cheat”. He’s a little too smart. If you let kids progress when guessing the point won’t hit home. I know practice exists but I would love if he could see his scores on phonemes and go back to practice. This would also be great insight for our teacher. He is in a US Montessori school.

My little girl is so happy to play the games and is really helping her with her sound and let her awareness for blending into simple words. It’s really an incredible app and the games are very engaging. I’ve seen her go for 30+ minutes stretches playing it and not need a break or seek out other games. But I will say, the hassle of logging in every time the app closes with the unique password and spelling her name has made it cumbersome.She relies on me to log back in. Without that, she would have to completely start over and lose all the progress she’s made. And since there is a linear progression to the game and activities, she would start back to sound that she’s already targeted and mastered. That would be my only complaint and I hope the developers make an update for that. It’s wonderful!

My son loves the app and has fun as its competitive and very much like any other game app where their player is on a path that needs to jump and make it to the end. The catch is that if they want to correctly finish, they must match the sound to the letter(s). The problem comes about when you’re needing to teach your child according to what they normally hear. Americans say arr for R but the game has an accent and says “ah” which also sounds like “au” or even the soft “a”. Furthermore, for iPad mini 3, the app doesn’t work well with the speakers. You can hardly hear the instructions by the narrator but you’ll hear a strong voice saying the letters needing matched. Many times they’ll be on top of each other and children can’t understand.
If you’re in America or Canada, this app may not be the best.

I am special education teacher and mother. My kids at home school love this app. It’s fun, academic and truly free. The game is centered on each child’s needs and does not progress until they have mastered a skill. Even when they’re slow to master a skill game doesn’t get boring or less challenging he continues to push the child in different ways the kids get prizes to decorate their monster for finishing challenges in the game. This game is not just for the lower level kids but for upper level elementary too. My daughter is in third fourth and fifth enjoy it for the reading comprehension and center structure. It has a great little Cavaleri and reinforces what your teachers are teaching. It’s colorful bright and I have yet to have any bug issues with his app. I use it on the computer on my whiteboard and also on my Apple products

This app is AMAZING! I have three boys, 2,4,6. My oldest really struggled with letter sounds so we found this game on the computer. He loved it and improved greatly! The two little brothers wanted to play so badly but they had issues working a mouse.
When I saw it was mobile I bought the app immediately! The little ones can play easily and are learning so much, my 2year old knows all his letter sounds and can read basic words. I am convinced it's because of this app!
The extensions and individual monsters have allowed my 6 year old to advance while the little ones play their monsters at their own level. Even my 16 year old sister has a monster and plays when she visits.
The kids love the story line and collecting their prizes. We have had zero issues with setting up and working this app.

We LOVE it all the way around, THANK YOU!

I liked this app originally but I wish the audio was in standard American English. The characters speak a sort of British/Australian English where I cannot hear the R sound. My child is learning “Noth” instead of “North” and “Huh” instead of “her” and so on. It makes it difficult for my budding reader to do a lesson when words he can usually understand he now cannot and I don’t really want him to pick up speaking with this style of pronunciation as we don’t speak that way here. In combination with the fact that after my child completed the letter sounds the lessons went right into expecting him to fully read sentences (fun with words). I expected a bit more of an explanation to the child or to be guided into blending sounds but you truly are expected to read a sentence and complete the action, after only learning letter sounds. Unfortunately we may no longer use this app

Wow. That is the word I would use to describe this amazing game. I have played a lot of different games over my past years of living (My job is living so I do it quite a bit). The clothing outfits are fascinating. I love how you can dress up as whatever you want! The progression behind the game is great as well. The more activities you complete, the faster you can build your spaceship to get home. The plot is a little shaky though. You crash land on this planet and your ship explodes, yet you come out with no injuries what so ever. I think if the game showed a little blood and showed the children how to bandage and clean a wound, that would be a great survival skill to learn. You never know when your spaceship will crash land and you’ll be stuck on a planet with kings that have you learn letters to rebuild your ship. Overall, this game is a pretty good game but it could be better.

Just downloaded yesterday but my first grader loved it right away. One glitch for my ESL girl was figuring out how to get the “magnet machine tool”...do not know what it should be called ...to lift the blank sound blocks as visible clues are what she looks for first. Because she has had trouble hearing and recognizing initial letter sounds, the lack of a visual clue made her listen more closely which was good. After frustration about figuring out what action was needed, she happily went on to make progress. She was so excited, she wanted to use the app again today on her lunch break. Today her almost 5 year and sister whined for me to put it in my phone so she could do it also. If early excitement and learning continues, I will be happy. A couple of other apos that I have tried the younger sister on before have yielded a “no, I don’t want that!” response. So it clearly got both over the app avoidance test!

Update 3/5
My son is now a reader! He only has problems with long words, but he remembers the rules and sounds them out.. This program helped where Phonics couldn’t. He was so frustrated with phonics books, but this was perfect for him. Eventually, I added the phonics books back in so he could have more practice, but without Teach Your Monster to Read, I don’t think we would have made it. Thank you so much!

Original review:
This has really helped my son with his reading! We tried phonics books and it just frustrated both of us. This is the only thing that has really helped him. He doesn’t cry when I say it’s time for Monsters! He used to cry every day when I brought out the book. The only thing that’s strange is the pronunciation is weird since the speaker sounds like she is from the UK and we are in the US. So I do have to correct the letter sounds sometimes. It would be funny if my son spoke American English but read in The Queen’s English. Lol

My 4 year old loves this app! She has learned a lot of letters and sounds and especially loves customizing the monster.

A few issues I have had with the app:
- The sounds all have English accents, which generally isn’t a problem but is really confusing on “o” and “r”.
- The games have no tutorial, so the fast games start, give a quick instruction, and take off without giving the child time to figure it out. My daughter still hasn’t figured out the flower or balloon games because they’re just too fast and have very little explanation.
- My main issue is that in the main game, there’s no way to “pause” and pick up later. On an island, if you close the app, it skips ahead to the next letter and there’s no way to go back. I wish there was the option to continue or stop between each island. We do an island every day and when we stop it skips ahead to the first letter of the next one when we reload the next day, so she misses the beginning and first letter sound of the next island, which is frustrating.

Otherwise this is a great app; lots of fun and really helps my daughter. She begs to do the monster game every day.

I’m not generally a fan of app based learning, but have been COVID schooling a kinder student who struggles majorly with the rudiments of reading, like letter sounds and blending. This app has turned reading from a frustrating subject to his favorite subject. He only plays for 10-15 minutes a day, as a supplement to our usual phonics lessons, but he has improved in every area by leaps and bounds, easily reading through simple books that would’ve been a slow, frustrating process to get through before. He is very motivated by earning prizes for his monster, and loves to show me all the monster accessories, letter sounds, and now “trickies” (sight words) he’s collected. The game has just enough intuitive feedback that he can figure it out almost entirely on his own, but not so much that it encourages guessing.

My only complaint is that it does not automatically keep the player from progressing to harder material without mastery. As long as the child has done all the activities in level 1, even if he is still struggling and making a lot of errors in some places, the game will still move on to level 2.

Overall, a great way to get struggling readers motivated, and build confidence.

This app is “almost” the perfect phonetics game!

Loves:
-My kids want to play it ALL the time.
-It had 3 levels so it adapts to each kids’ ability.
-It is fun, interactive, and very educational.
-My autistic (almost)4yr old is an early reader but late speaker, his pronunciation is getting better after just a few days.
-My 6yr old is now recognizing more blended letters when reading his homework. He was already one of the top readers in his class, he is now blowing me away by home much he is picking up in just a few days of playing.

Cons:
-The British accent is sometimes hard for my American kids to understand what they are being asked to do.
-The volume is not quite right. The main narrator and the music/sound effects are really loud if you want to actually hear the “word speakers”. Example: I the narrator says “to save the bear find the word”, and then someone else says “turn”. The person saying “turn” is so quiet that we have the tablet volume almost all the way up. Then it’s way too loud when the narrator speaks again.
-There are a few instances, in different games, where I wish you could touch letters and they would make the phonetic sound again for kids who have a hard time remembering their task.

Overall we are absolutely in love with this game and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a good phonetics game!

I wanted to try this app out to see if it would be good for my kindergarteners. On the easiest game (phonics), the narrator wanted me to sort sheep into a pen for words beginning with the /s/ sound. This is wrong! "Sheep" begins with the /sh/ sound, not the /s/ sound. I deleted the app because of this. Please fix!

When learning letters and sounds, a sheep should not be used to teach the /s/ sound. There are so many other animals that could have been chosen (ex: snake) for that activity. The /sh/ sound is usually taught later when learning blends. Hard to like this game when the very first activity is not developmentally appropriate.

Probably fine for little kids, but my 8 yr old finds it waaaaay too young for her. When purchasing the app I read that it worked for older kids that needed more phonics practice. Nor for us... I cannot find a way to request a refund either, I emailed the producer and they said to do that in the App Store, can’t find it what a runaround.

The graphics are beautiful, but unfortunately the mini games to learn the sounds were very confusing for both me and my child. Most of the time is spent figuring out how to move ducks or what the game expects you to do with blocks and rockets not spent learning sounds. This needs to be tested with more kids - feels like it needs more work.

Don’t have much play it needs to be more different plays to make it fun. She don’t like it. It’s to easy for her. She says the games it the same. No change. Refund would be great. Wasn’t worth my 6 dollars.. Thanks But it’s ok for a started of. Some kids Might find it boring in a very shout time cause there really is a change up in the game. Thank You

This app is a waste of money. The password options are set up so confusingly that my child has not been able to log in. I've spent about an hour total trying to reset, get in, follow instructions, change the options and none of it is working. Complete waste of money since use now has to play the online version anyway which is what I was trying to avoid.

Just not liking this. Some portions seem to be teaching/testing video game skills rather than reading. Reading content too easy, “jumping” content at times too challenging for my child. Also wish there were an American English version as occasionally “rhymes” don’t actually rhyme here, and sounds that are “the same” in the game are actually quite different in the US.

My son loves (loved) this app so much until it started crashing every few minutes. He starts out so well and in the middle of playing the app crashes and he loses the progress he has made. He has become so upset and frustrated that I've had to remove it from his iPad. Also, some of the pronunciations are difficult to understand. "The" and "their" for example - even I can't understand the difference.

My 3 year old daughter loves the app but you can't return to a letter set once you complete it! Yesterday morning she did so well with the first four letter sounds (s, t, a, p) but last night she was getting the p sound wrong. For 15 minutes I tried to figure out how to go back...you can't! As a teacher, I'm disappointed that kids can't go back and master previously introduced material! Fix it Usborne!

ZERO STARS This app has one accent, every app has one voice, either girl or boy, American or British, I’m well versed in this scam. If your American and learn to read from British sources like this, it’s considered a speech impediment. I want my money back you’re lack of leg work in voice recording is not working for everybody.
ZERO for this one basic flaw
“Know your audience”
I expect a full refund for this crap

Downloaded the game for my four year old. We understand how to play the game but it requires manual dexterity above both my four year old AND myself. We couldn’t get past the second level because it’s too sensitive to errors or tiny fingers. Even adults found it too hard to drag the pieces to the *exactspot to move to a new level. Kid games shouldn’t be this hard. Terrible design despite the rave reviews. I want a refund ASAP.

My daughter is three and knows all her letters and their sounds very well. This app has many situations where the next step isn’t intuitive so I have to help her figure it out. It’s also VERY repetitive in nature. I will make a child go through 6 rounds of the same game with the same letter just in a different order. She’ll make it through one letter and then be bored. It doesn’t have any real progression or advancement at the speed that she needs.

This is the first app I have given one star too. It is very hard to use. I downloaded it last night for my granddaughter to use. It is very hard to maneuver. I couldn’t do it even helping her. It asks you to keep putting ducks in a pond. It took forever to get the darn things in there because the wouldn’t move easily and then it repeated itself and wanted us to do it again. She was not impressed and now doesn’t want to play it anymore. This was not a cheap app so I feel like I am out five bucks. I would not recommend. She has no issues with other apps.

App goes really fast from letters immediately to constructing words. Seems unreasonably fast. For example, my kid was practicing “ng” sounds and the next game was spelling the word “fang” without any practice behind spelling whole words. I would not recommend. It’s good for sounding letters and combinations of letters but doesn’t do a good enough job transitioning to whole words. Another example is we finished the beginning and then the next stage asked us to read a sentence to find the next steps. We haven’t even begun to learn words and now they want my kid to read whole sentences?

We happily paid a premium for this app because it looked high quality (like endless alphabet) and at first it looked promising... but it has been a disappointment.

I literally have to force my 3-year old and 5-year old to play it. The talking between "games" is much too long and boring for them and they whine that they want to play something else. I have played with them and I agree with them. If the game cut back the slow parts (which are currently 70% of the game play - listening to dialogue that is repetitive / non-educational / not necessary) and opened up more games earlier (there's only so much sheep wrangling you can do) then I think it might have a chance.

I’m going to delete this game.

My son tried playing for the first time today. Just figuring out how to get registered was a massive pain. Then they assigned a nightmare of a password. My 5 year old will never remember that jumble of numbers and letters. Disabling the password requires this ridiculously circuitous path of logging in through the website then navigating back to the app that only works half the time.

The game just crashed. Now I have to go through that login nightmare again.

I don’t see any reason why my 5 year old has to go through rigorous security protocols to play a game on our personal iPad.

Hoping he doesn’t notice when his new app gets deleted.