Teach Your Monster to Read vs Visual Math Karate

Welcome to Teach Your Monster to Read, the award-winning app that makes learning to read fun and engaging! Our educational phonics and reading games have helped millions of children build essential literacy skills. Create your own monster and embark on a magical journey through interactive games designed for home and school use. With a safe, trusted, and highly recommended approach, Teach Your Monster to Read offers phonics-based reading games for all levels. Teaching through play is what we do best—download today and start your child’s reading adventure! TEACH YOUR MONSTER TO READ FEATURES INTERACTIVE KIDS READING GAMES • Take your custom-designed monster through educational games that are suitable for ages 3-6. • Improve letter sound recognition with reading games • Explore a world of phonics and educational games that teach your child to read sentences • Easily track their player’s progress to identify areas where their reader may need extra support PHONICS & READING GAMES DESIGNED BY EXPERTS • Designed in collaboration with Roehampton University and leading game designers • Phonics tools and educational games that complement phases 2-5 of UK Government-approved Letters and Sounds and other major systematic synthetic phonics programmes • 3 reading games designed for those in preschool, primary school, kindergarten, and first grade EDUCATIONAL PLAY AT NO ADDITIONAL COST • Teach Your Monster to Read is available on iPad and iPhone • Explore phonics and educational games without in-app purchases, hidden costs, or in-game adverts • Teach Your Monster to Read supports your child through every step of their reading journey HEAR FROM TEACHERS AND PARENTS WHO USE OUR READING GAMES "This game is the absolute best quality phonics game I have come across for educational and fun value." Marie Lewis, Rochdale “My class have reaped loads of benefits from using the programme and the difference in some of their reading skills has been dramatic." Maria Andrews, Foundation Phase Teacher "This is a fabulous game. I'm not kidding when I say that my daughter essentially learned all her letter sounds using First steps, with relatively minimal input from me! Great for parents to practise their letter sounds too." Eleanor Jones PART OF THE USBORNE FOUNDATION CHARITY Teach Your Monster to Read has been created by Teach Monster Games Ltd. which is a subsidiary of The Usborne Foundation. The Usborne Foundation is a charity founded by children’s publisher, Peter Usborne MBE. Harnessing research, design and technology, we create playful media addressing issues from literacy to health. Teach a monster today when you download our educational app! Teach Monster Games Ltd is a subsidiary of The Usborne Foundation, a registered charity in England and Wales, charity number 1121957.

Want your child to develop a strong math foundation for life? Visual Math Karate is designed to help young students develop strong computational skills, mental math, and mastery of math facts for life. Unlike many other math apps, advanced memory games are supported to keep things more interesting and challenging for young learners. Spanning from Pre-K to Grade 1, this unique method of counting, unitizing (or making groups of ten), adding and subtracting lays the foundation for understanding base-ten numbers and the place value system. We start with the use of ten frames to visualize numbers within 20 and continue with decomposing and composing numbers to find sums and differences to (finally!) release students from dependence on counting by ones. Through activities & games your child will learn a variety of strategies that will help her visualize, classify, compose, decompose, compare, add & subtract numbers. Acquiring these strategies are crucial for developing deep understanding of numbers, number sense, and the ability to fluently engage in all arithmetic operations. For Parents – Why Visual Math Karate? A bit of research: You may not realize this, but children learn two types of numbers. Each type is useful for a different reason. Ordinal numbers reflect the sequence of numbers (such as, counting numbers, 1, 2, 3, … 7, 8, 9). Numbers can also be used to indicate size or quantity. These are cardinal numbers (such as, I see 5 cats and 3 more cats. There are 8 cats altogether.) Many researchers show that understanding cardinality helps children acquire good number sense. For this reason, Visual Math Karate emphasizes cardinality & visualization. Research shows us that children who have learned to visualize ten frames can subitize (instantly recognize numbers). For example, look at our 8 ten frame. Children’s brains have learned to easily see a row of 5 and 3 more as 8. They see the 2 empty spaces, also. As such, children also will tell you that 8 is 2 dots away from 10 and that 8 and 2 make 10. Memorization or Visualization? Memorizing facts is not even necessary! Visualization helps children use strategies to do calculations mentally. Children enjoy using the ten frame and seeing how quickly their brains can do simple calculations. The bottom line: When children have a visual image of numbers quantities 1-10 with ten-frames, it is easier to use mental math to calculate. Visualization and practice lead to mastery. Moreover, early strategy-based learning will help children think about multi-digit calculations. The same cannot be achieved through memorization with drills. For Teachers – Why Visual Math Karate? Have you ever been perplexed at how easily and quickly students appear to backslide and forget basic math facts, even after they have shown mastery on timed tests? Why do many continue to use their fingers and counting strategies to add and subtract well into second grade? Visual Math Karate’ subitizing activities are designed to help young students readily identify the number of objects in a set without counting and develop the concept of cardinality. Cardinality is crucial for developing deep understanding of numbers, number sense, and the ability to fluently engage in arithmetic operations and comparisons. Understanding of numbers as quantities will enable students to decompose and compose numbers, unitize, or make groups of ten, which is the foundation for understanding base-ten numbers and the place value system.