Monster Phonics

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When I came across Monster Phonics I was instantly smitten. Children clearly adored it and the teachers were huge advocates of the scheme. I have seen pretty much everything during my time in education but this really stands out as the most fun, engaging approach that I have seen, which genuinely creates happy, confident learners. In my humble opinion, Monster Phonics is unrivalled as an all-encompassing and exciting phonics approach for EYFS and KS1 and as an intervention programme in KS2.

Using colour to show sound makes it truly multisensory, which is why it helps all children learn. The improved results in schools using Monster Phonics are significant. I would urge any school and any teacher seeking to better help all children to start using Monster Phonics today.

Ros Wilson, Creator of Big Writing

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Monster Phonics has made such a difference to our children. The main thing we found is that they absolutely love learning phonics now. They are obsessed with the monsters and even choose to play monster phonics in the playground. It has enabled children who find reading hard to read words we never thought they would have attempted before.

The children love the videos and sing them all day long. It has also improved our phonics screening results for the last two years now. Children have made great progress.

Hannah Bond, Year 1 Teacher, Cookham Dean Primary School, Kent

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Our children love the monster characters and really engage with them, for example, they love Tricky Witch and understand when she has changed a sound. We find that the visual approach really helps to support those children who find phonics a challenge and last year our Year 1 phonics results improved by 10%. We have recently purchased the spelling logs too which the parents find very helpful.

Sarah Brailey, Newton Flotman Primary School, Norfolk

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Last year was the first year that we did it for the whole year and our phonics screening results were the highest by a long way compared to previous years. The children did amazingly well and in our area of Hampshire we did really well. We completely correlate that to Monster Phonics. Their reading progression changed so dramatically through the year.

We did the trial and within two sessions we knew that we wanted to carry on with it, we were really impressed. The kids loved it… there was no way we could have done two days of the trial and then said, we’re not going to do those monsters anymore, because the children were completely taken in that first session.

Since 2016, Great Binfields Primary phonics results have increased by 9.5% points. Great Binfields Primary Scores are 7.7% above the Hampshire average and 8.6% above the Natio nal average.

Laura Hanafin, Year 1 Teacher, Great Binfields Primary, Hampshire

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The staff here at Marden have found themselves enjoying phonics more since we started using Monster Phonics. The children love the characters and have very quickly learnt all their names and the associated sounds. They are enjoying writing with all the different colours and are so engaged with all the other activities that make up the scheme. We can’t believe how many resources you get for such a good price.

Ashley Chapman, Year 1/2 teacher, Marden Primary, Kent

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We’ve been really pleased with the Monster Phonics resources and programme. Pupils are securing understanding of phonic sounds far quicker compared to previous years. The layout of the scheme enables secure coverage ready for the Year 1 screening check. Great for planning and extremely straight forward to use and access. The resources are fun and varied. We have enjoyed phonics sessions.

Ewa Wilson, Head of School at Bonners CE Primary School, East Sussex

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Monster Phonics is easy to follow with really comprehensive plans.

Louise Maughan, Willington School, London

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We have found Monster Phonics has reignited enthusiasm in the children as it is very multisensory and provides a range of ideas that we can use for individuals, depending on their needs, at both a whole class and intervention level. We have found it particularly successful with our boys.

Last year we started using this in term 4 in Foundation Stage and Year 1 and were pleased with the outcome of our phonics testing being the highest yet at 86%. We therefore made the decision to continue with our subscription and have started teaching it to our new children. We now use it through Foundation Stage, 1 and 2 and we have seen the children using the different monster characters to explore alternatives for their writing rather than always sticking to the same sound.

Victoria Alliston, River Primary School, Kent

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The scheme is excellent and very easy to use. The resources and lesson ideas are fun and engaging for the children and they all love the monsters. The children have already shown very good progress when understanding alternative pronunciations for graphemes and have even brought in books from home where they have noticed that ‘tricky witch’ has changed a sound or angry red A is in a word. I love how Monster Phonics also teaches the spelling rules linked to the national curriculum which makes planning and ensuring curriculum coverage so much easier.

Amy Dyke, Year 1/2 teacher, The Priors School, Warwickshire

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My study offers evidence to support the DfES’s (2014) claim, that Monster Phonics provides a ‘first and fast’ approach to developing word recognition skills during the early years.

Emma Garrett, Research Dissertation on The Impact of Monster Phonics on Emergent Literacy Skills in Young Children, University of East London

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Monster Phonics has been a great tool for the school and definitely something that we are keen to renew for the new academic year. All the children have benefited from the different resources and have engaged in the variety of exciting lessons.

Anita Spanou, St Pauls and All Hallows School, Haringey

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As a Dyslexia Specialist teacher I have seen many pupils struggle with retaining sounds and sight vocabulary despite good quality teaching. I am currently working in a secondary school and I am thrilled with the impact that the Monster Phonics resources are making. I was concerned that older pupils may not want to use materials that were designed for the younger learner but this hasn’t been the case. The pupils who have particularly struggled with exception words are now remembering and understanding the letter order and are able to make sense of what was previously illogical. It is as if a light has gone on for them. They talk about the character sounds and verbalise why they think a word has a particular letter order. It has made them analytical and much more confident. Previously we might comment and say that they just had to learn the word using a whole word visual method and now we can help them to ‘see’ the sound and use the colour and characterisation to help them remember and recall.

Mary Dowson, Dyslexia Specialist Teacher, Heartlands High School, Haringey

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My pupils adore the monster characters and constantly relate to them when they are reading or writing. Not only are the children able to make easy connections to the sounds the characters represent but they love their stories and the catchy songs or dances.

It is always a concern at the start of the year when children struggle to spell words commonly used in their daily lives as well as those known in the teaching world as the high frequency words. Monster Phonics has addressed the gap for me by identifying those words and phonics that children need to access straight away, not once they’ve worked their way through a phase or a spelling scheme.

I know when something wonderful is working for the children in my class, that it’s a keeper and Monster Phonics has it place firmly embedded in my Literacy programme.

Maryse Vernon, Year 2 Teacher at Harrow International School, Bangkok

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Children loved the monsters and really identified with them

The colours helped children to ‘hook’ onto sounds easily – highly effective visual/auditory link

They noticed monster digraphs within words when reading in other situations

Children became so familiar with visuals they were able to decide whether choice of digraphs looked right for spelling – supports visual memory

Songs/visuals support memory

Children (boys particularly) more engaged and excited about learning. Had much more fun – learnt through play by using the games

Staff enjoyed teaching MP and watching the penny drop

Children asked to continue after SATs/end of term – disappointed when lessons didn’t happen

Ghost letters allowed exploration of more complex words and helped children to become genuinely interested in how they worked – wouldn’t have tackled these words without them – supported the explanation of unusual spellings.

Feedback from the Leicester City Schools SENCO Trial, January-June 2016

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My children love this programme, especially the different characters used throughout. They enjoy using the coloured magnetic letters and using them to practise spelling the words. They also enjoy making up stories to go with each of the characters and use as many words as they can from the word lists to reinforce the phoneme and the spelling pattern.

The word lists are extremely useful for the teacher and are very comprehensive, ranging from simple to more advanced words, so my older SEN children have benefited hugely. The ghosts and the tricky witch are our favourite characters!

Amy Allen, SEN Teacher, Alice Smith International School, Malaysia

Success Stories