How Monster Phonics Works

An average increase in the phonics pass rate of 13% in the first year

Monster Phonics creates a love of learning. Studies show that prior to Monster Phonics being used, 10% of children enjoyed phonics sessions, compared to 90% once Monster Phonics had been implemented.

Who is it for?

Monster Phonics is a whole-class Systematic Synthetic Phonics Scheme with Decodable Books for children in Reception and Key Stage 1. It is also used as an intervention in Key Stages 1 and 2.

Colour-coding

Monster Phonics teaches children to read by enabling them to identify the individual graphemes (letter combinations) and blend the sounds (phonemes) together to read the word. It is a fun way to teach phonics, since it is multi-sensory. Sounds are categorised into ten colour groups, and each colour has a corresponding monster character. Monster Phonics is a highly advanced multisensory scheme. This creates interest and engagement from the children.

Click on a monster below to find out more.

Training for Your School

Our training packages include our online training series, consisting of 26 modules over 3 levels of training, as well as 4 training sessions with one of our expert trainers. Training assessment ensures that teaching staff complete the training having secured extensive knowledge in all aspects of the teaching of phonics and reading. 

All schools are supported through our training programme to navigate all of the Monster Phonics Programme, including our decodable books and our dedicated intervention programme of work. Every school has access to an assigned trainer, whose purpose is to ensure school fidelity to the programme, successful implementation for all relevant staff, and improvement in overall phonics knowledge and teaching. 

Click on a Monster to see the Colour-Coded Graphemes

  • Green Froggy Angry Red A
    X
    Angry Red A

    Angry Red A

    a, a-e, ay, ai, ei, eigh, ea, ey

    There are 8 graphemes that make the long A sound. We colour them red.
    Angry Red A is a memory cue for the long A sound because he makes this sound.

    Angry Red A is a kind but crazy monster. He sometimes breaks objects without thinking. He loves driving his racing car and has a monster taxi service. On Fridays, his cave becomes the Rave Cave for the weekly monster disco.
  • Green Froggy Green Froggy
    X
    Green Froggy

    Green Froggy

    e, y, ee, ea, ie, ey, ei, i, e-e, i-e

    There are 9 graphemes that make the long E sound. We colour them green.
    Green Froggy is a memory cue for the long E sound because she makes this sound.

    ‘Green Froggy is happy to dr eam under the tree’
    ‘Green Froggy is a teacher at the teapot school house. She loves to drink tea and coffee and always looks forward to the weekend’
  • Green Froggy Yellow I
    X
    Yellow I

    Yellow I

    i, i-e, y, igh, ie, y-e

    There are 5 graphemes that make the long I sound. We colour them yellow.
    The Yellow I monster is a memory cue for the long I sound because he makes this sound.

    Yellow I watches over the other monsters from his lighthouse. When there is trouble the lighthouse blinks and he jumps into action. Yellow I is a spy who goes on secret missions and loves gadgets like iPads and iPhones. He can fly when he wears his secret cloak.
  • Green Froggy Miss Oh No
    X
    Miss Oh No

    Miss Oh No

    o, o-e, oa, ow, oe

    There are 5 graphemes that make the long O sound. We colour them pink.
    Miss Oh No is a memory cue for the long O sound because she says ‘Oh No!’ when she bumps into things.

    Miss Oh No loves to dance more than anything else in the world. She is a disco dance teacher giving lessons after school to all the monsters. She is enthusiastic but sometimes lacks coordination! Miss Oh No lives inside a pink-coated doughnut-shaped house.
  • Green Froggy U-Hoo
    X
    U-Hoo

    U-Hoo

    u, u-e, ew, ue, eu

    There are 5 graphemes that make the long U sound. We colour them purple.
    U-Hoo is a memory cue for the long U sound because he makes this sound.

    U-Hoo lives in the outer universe. He calls ‘Yoo-hoo!’ and waves his U-shaped arms to his friends below him. He visits Monster Phonics Land by sliding down a purple tube that magically appears. U-hoo is a musician, playing the drums in the monsters band.
  • Green Froggy Cool Blue
    X
    Cool Blue

    Cool Blue

    u, o, u-e, oo, ew, ue, ou, ui, o-e, eu

    There are 10 graphemes that make the long oo sound. We colour them blue.
    Cool Blue is a memory cue for the long O sound because he makes this sound.

    Cool Blue is a cool DJ and he also looks after the zoo. He adores animals especially kangaroos and cockatoos. Cool Blue lives in a blue moon house. His favourite DJ event is the Friday Monsters Disco. He also sings the ‘Ooh’ vocals in the monsters’ band.
  • Green Froggy Brown Owl
    X
    Brown Owl

    Brown Owl

    ow, ou

    There are 2 graphemes that make the ow sound. We colour them brown.
    Brown Owl is a memory cue for the ow sound.

    Brown Owl is a Mountain Rescue Owl. She lives in a brown treehouse at the top of Monster Mountain with Bounder, her St Bernard. If a monster is lost, she’ll save them. She loves comics and talks like a comic book… POW! WOW! OW! She excels at school.
  • Green Froggy Silent Monsters
    X
    Silent Monsters

    Silent Monsters

    The sound cue for silent letters is “Put your fingers to your lips. Silent letters make no sound.” We colour them white. The silent monsters help children to remember to write these letters in words, even though they have no sound.

    The silent monsters enjoy hiding and jumping out to scare the other monsters. They make no sound! This is great for pretending that they are not there. They live in Tricky’s house and help to look after the Black Cats. They feed them and play chase games.
  • Green Froggy Tricky
    X
    Tricky

    Tricky

    Tricky letters show no grapheme-phoneme correspondence. They make a different sound to the one that has been taught. We colour them gold. For example, the ‘a’ in ‘want’ makes an ‘o’ sound. For Tricky letters, the cue is “Tricky has cast a spell to change the sounds you know so well. Can I catch you out”?

    Tricky is naughty and casts ‘tricky’ spells in Monster Phonics Land often causing chaos. She lives in the haunted house with the ghosts and the black cats. Her nieces, the Little Nieces come to visit. Tricky loves jewellery and gold bling!
  • Green Froggy The Black Cats
    X
    The Black Cats

    The Black Cats

    The black cats make the phonetic sounds. These are the 26 letters of the alphabetic, 9 consonant digraphs and or and ur. They do not need a sound cue as they are phonetic.

    The black cats are happy and playful. They like to line up in a row to make phonetic words. The cats don’t understand Tricky Witch’s magic or how the ghosts can disappear but they are learning how to read simple words using their letter sounds.

  • Multisensory Approach Creates a Love Learning

  • Multisensory Make Learning Fun

  • Delivers Fantastic Results

  • Easy to teach the National Curriculum

Monster Phonics is just £399 per year for a whole school subscription.

The Monster Phonics Approach is based on Linguistic Research

Monster Phonics was developed by Ingrid Connors, a primary teacher, phonics specialist and audiological scientist. Ingrid’s experiences within education and her scientific background led her to focus research on the linguistic obstacles to literacy and specifically how these can be overcome through the systematic teaching of phonics. The outcomes of this research form the foundations of Monster Phonics:

  1. There are linguistic characteristics specific to the English language that making learning to read and spell more difficult – these are long vowels, silent letters and ‘tricky’ letters. This is largely the result of historical changes to our language.
  2. Showing children the sound of each grapheme through very simple colour-coding makes learning to read and spell easier.
  3. Engagement is key to learning – a phonics programme that is successful for all children must achieve a high level of interest and engagement. Multisensory teaching improves engagement.

 

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Frequently Asked questions

Your Monster Phonics membership will give all your teaching staff access to the planning, daily lessons, assessments, and intervention resources covering Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 phonics teaching.
Yes, Monster Phonics is easy to introduce at any point in the school year. View our Teaching Manual to see the Monster Phonics Progression Map. This shows the order of teaching and where to start in the Monster Phonics programme. The consistent planning makes it easy to implement improving results straight away.
Yes, Monster Phonics is suitable for SEN schools and SEN units within mainstream schools. Our innovative and highly advanced multisensory approach supports SEN children learning phonics in a memorable, fun and engage way.
Yes, Monster Phonics is suitable for children who speak English is a second language. Our unique approach helps children to learn to read and write words containing the difficult long vowels, silent letters and tricky words that frequently cause problems for children learning to read and write in English. It also provides more support with pronunciation. This is particularly beneficial for EAL learners
We have our own reading scheme which consists of 130 decodable books which are aligned to the Monster Phonics Programme.