Reinforces bad habits. Our 6 year old is trilingual but struggles mightily with reading English. We were hoping this app would help. But there's no negative consequences for getting wrong answers, so she's not reading or sounding anything out. She just guesses until she finds the right word. I highly recommend playing the game together with your child to make sure they're getting out of it what they're supposed to. Which, unfortunately, defeats the purpose of self-guided study apps.
Anthony Ryan
I like it! A few of the mini games have finicky controls and I've seen them glitch out (not making appropriate sounds). A good example is the the spaceship lifting blocks to make a letter tower mini-game. I like having this game on my phone for long car rides, my kids can play something educational. At least they're practicing their reading when they would otherwise be complaining how boring the car ride is.
Simon Rippon
It's a wonderful phonics learning game. Our 4 year old started on it with virtually no knowledge of letters and has learned a fair bit from it (now halfway through game 2), while also enjoying it a lot. My only complaint is that the game progresses quickly between levels even if the player is not getting answers consistently right. The whole game progresses for my son too quickly without additional phonics support from school, etc. (where we live he isn't supported in learning to read at kindergarten), so he is going through the game while only learning some of the letters. We've tried logging him in as a new user so that he could go back through the starting levels (which he wasn't too happy about!), but even so the game is progressing too fast. It would be better if the next level were rewarded only if there are few or no mistakes.
S A
It's great to come across a game that's British and my daughter (4) finds engaging. I love the idea of a monster on the mission, selecting prizes, the illustrations and personalising the monster... However I find it a little fast paced, 1 letter you select 1 game that they consolidate 3x (twice for the same letter and once for another) and then that level is complete. I'd love for 1 letter, 2 games so consolidated 6x. I also don't like the font used, my daughter thought a G was a C.
Val Wilson
This app is amazing. After some abortive attempts at teaching my 5 year old to read at home, she started this game and is now playing it obsessively. It's exactly at the right level for her. She knew letter sounds and was beginning to be able to recognise them in words, but only very occasionally tried reading an unfamiliar word. Now she's had a huge boost in confidence and ability, and recently wrote by herself a 'shopping list' of all her favourite items, completely bonkers spelling but absolutely phonetic (so she hadn't copied the words). She finds reading the longer sentences hard (actually doesn't do it, to be honest), but the app is really forgiving with this and there is always enough positive reinforcement to keep going even when you don't get words right first time. The only comment I have is that we'd like a Scottish version! Some 2-letter sounds only work with an English accent, and I found some of the 'er, ir' sounds really hard to distinguish, so I'm not sure what she's learning there!
A Google user
Both my kids (aged 4 and 7) love this game, and the price is very fair for what you get! My only complaint is that the adventure ends 😁 You can keep playing by returning to planets on your own but my daughter lost interest in that. I wish there was another practice reading adventure, as kids can move quite fast through the games/levels, a follow up game that practiced what they learnt (and could be played over and over, to say increase a top score) would be great.
Dawna Stirrup
I find that these games are too difficult for preschool children due to their speed and lack of instructions.
Erin Bridges
It's not free anymore! My autistic 12-year daughter wants to play it but now you have to log in. I wish it was free again. No, I'm not referring to the game's price, I bought it already, but the log in feature is so annoying! Can you remove that in the next update please?
Danielle Bobalik
My son is 4 at the time of this review. He's been playing this game since he was about 2.5 almost 3 years old and we love it. Obviously at first he really didn't understand how to play and just loved all the sounds and creating his monster. However, over time it really helped him learn his letters and letter sounds. We took a technology break but he still asks to play Monsters. This has become one of our homeschooling essentials. I regularly recommend this app to everyone. The hardest part has been getting him to stop playing. 😆
A Google user
Absolutely amazing! My son got an account through school in Pre-K and he loved it from the start. The levels are simple, but challenging enough to keep his attention and really helped with recognition of letter sounds and sight words. It is fun and educational, which is so hard to find in a good kids game these days. I would recommend this game to anyone with kiddos just starting out or thoes that are struggling with reading!
