Guide to Reading Monster Phonics Books

Monster Phonics books are fun, engaging and improve results. Here is a simple guide to get the most benefit out of the reading scheme.

How to Read Monster Phonics Books

1. Before reading the story, look at the pictures and talk about what the story might be about. Use this as an opportunity to highlight and discuss any unknown vocabulary.  Try the story below as an example.

2. On pages 1 and 2, practise reading the words in the tables. Read these in a fun way by reading the words in different directions or by reading similar looking words first, such as cake, take, rake. Read the ‘wow’ words. These encourage your child to use interesting vocabulary in their own writing.

3. Enjoy the story together. Your child may need more or less support to read. In each book, colour highlights the focus spelling (grapheme). Monster Phonics also uses colour to help children to read high-frequency words (common words such as ‘when’ and ‘said’) with fluency. You will find that the colour is dropped from the word once that spelling has been taught.

4. After reading the story, there are a set of questions to ask your child. In Year 1 and 2 books, these appear at the end of the book. In Reception books, they appear at the start under ‘Things to think about before reading the story’.

Here is an example of a Reception book.

Each Reception book also has an optional section for an adult to read at the bottom of each page. This text is not critical for the understanding of the story but adds further detail to bring the story to life. 

How does Monster Phonics work?

Monster Phonics enables English to be learnt in a simplistic way. The 26 letters of the alphabet and combinations of these letters make 44 different sounds (phonemes) in English.

There are 144 ways (graphemes) to spell these 44 sounds. For example, the sound A is spelt 8 different ways; ay (play), ai (train), a-e (make), a (apron), ei (vein), eigh (eight), ea (great), ey (grey).

Monster Phonics uses the 10 monsters to categorise all sounds into 10 simple areas. Furthermore, each monster has a different colour and that colour also represents the sound. This means children can recognise the monsters and the colour associated with the sound, which helps them spell, read and write.

The use of monsters and the games associated with Monster Phonics ensures Monster Phonics is a fun and engaging way to learn, further accelerating the speed of learning for all.

If you are interested in more ideas to teach your child to read and spell in a fun and engaging way, come to one of our free Parent Webinar sessions. We look forward to seeing you there! 

Monster Phonics for Schools

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