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The Word Monsters - Kindergarten: Series 1

Encouraging a lifelong love of reading

The Word Monsters is a new and innovative series of interactive, decodable readers for Kindergarten and Grade 1 students. The books are designed for use by your child at home or in a school setting. Check out the first 6 titles of the Kindergarten series available now!

Hello!

Meet The Word Monsters—Tag, Jet, Rip, Pop, and Bug—a group of fun-loving characters with some interesting abilities!

Decodable Words: am, Tag, can, hop, Jet, run, Rip, hit, Pop, hide, Bug
High Frequency Words: Hello, I, fly, here, are, and
Phonics Focus: s, a, t, p

Teacher Notes

Print Activities

Fun in the Sun

Join the five colorful monsters at the seaside as they have fun, play tricks, and relax in the sunshine!

Decodable Words: Rip, a, big, bat, hit, Tag, fun, dog, go, Pop, tan, rod, fun, Jet, fat, log, zip, Bug, red, hat, nap
High Frequency Words: Where, is, has, one
Phonics Focus: i, n, g, d

Teacher Notes

Print Activities

Tag's Big Bag

What is in Tag's Bag? A fat cat?! A mad bat?! Join The Word Monsters in their garden as they play a fun guessing game.

Decodable Words: Tag, in, bag, it, a, fat, cat, not, sad, pig, mad, bat, Pop
High Frequency Words: Here, what, is, the, no, that, look
Phonics Focus: m, o, c, k

Teacher Notes

Print Activities

The Van

Tag goes for a ride in his van, but ends up with more passengers than he bargained for, as well as some car trouble!

Decodable Words: Tag, in, van, get, Pop, can, get, Bug, fun, let, Jet, hot, it, Rip, not
High Frequency Words: is, the, and, go, I, have, me, are
Phonics Focus: e, u, r, f

Teacher Notes

Print Activities

Can You See Me?

Can you find The Word Monsters? Have fun helping the five playful friends spot each other in this hide-and-seek story!

Decodable Words: can, Tag, in, box, Bug, on, log, Jet, hut, Pop, mud
High Frequency Words: me, you, see, he, is, the, she, hello
Phonics Focus: h, b, l

Teacher Notes

Print Activities

Pig in a Wig

Visit the funfair with Tag, Jet, Rip, Pop, Bug, and their talented pets, while learning about rhythm and rhyme!

Decodable Words: Tag, a, bat, hat, in, on, mat, Jet, pig, wig, can, jig, Bug, dog, log, it's, Rip, Pop, let's
High Frequency Words: has, the, that, who, all, do
Phonics Focus: Word families -at, -ig, -og, -op, -et, -un, -an, -ip, -ug

Teacher Notes

Print Activities

The Word Monsters

Check back soon for more upcoming Word Monster titles!

Key Features

Learning to read with engaging instruction aligned to the US Common Core State Standards

Audio Reinforcement Every sentence in a Word Monster story can be read aloud by touching the audio icon to the left of the sentence. As each word is spoken it is highlighted so that students can associate the printed word with its sound. Each decodable word can also be sounded out by touching it. For example, touching the word "Tag" will result in the voice over stating each individual letter sound – /T/ /A/ /G/ - before blending the sounds together to say "Tag."
	Reading Buddy Each screen in the Word Monster books features optional supplementary instruction around phonemic awareness, print concepts, reading comprehension, vocabulary and sight words. All of the instruction is aligned to the Common Core Standards. Some of this instruction takes a question/answer format, with the Reading Buddy playing the role of a teacher or parent prompting the student and keeping him/her at the edge of his/her learning curve.
Interactive Animations Every screen in the Word Monster books is enriched with interactive objects, each of which can be touched to trigger a fun animation. In addition, the object is named in the audio, with the corresponding word appearing on screen. The goal of these interactive points is to entertain the child, while at the same time increasing their reading vocabulary by introducing more challenging words in an engaging way.
	Character Speech Children can interact directly with the characters on screen! One touch and the characters will respond with a phrase that relates to what is happening within the story. A speech bubble simultaneously appears above the character's head. As with the interactive objects, the character speech allows the user to interact with the story in a fun way while also introducing richer and more challenging vocabulary than that contained in the decodable text.
Activities Every Word Monster book contains three activities that address each of the main strands of the Common Core Standards: Literature, Foundational Skills, and Language. The activities focus on skills such as phonemic awareness, comprehension, high-frequency words, and vocabulary. Students may be asked to identify objects with a particular beginning or ending sound, answer questions about key details in the story, or complete sentences by dragging the correct word to an empty slot.

Meet The Word Monsters

The names of the five Word Monsters correspond directly to the five vowel sounds, a, e, i, o, & u. Each monster’s name is a three-phoneme CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) word.

TAG - /T/ /A/ /G/

Tag is a bright and breezy guy who enjoys nothing more than hanging out with his Word Monster friends or playing "catch" with his dog Mr Gruff. Tag doesn't have legs but that doesn't stop him getting around—he's got a large spring attached to his body which allows him to bounce to great heights. He takes a lot of pride in his appearance (he’s a little bit vain!) and loves wearing fancy bow ties. He doesn’t like a mess which means has to clean up after Rip and Pop a lot!

Tag Character Image

JET - /J/ /E/ /T/

Jet is a super-speedy monster who is impossible to catch in a game of chasing! She is very smart and knows a lot of stuff. She loves being right and the other monsters sometimes tease her for being a bit bossy. Jet has a pet pig called Pamela that she likes to dress up.

RIP - /R/ /I/ /P/

Rip is an incredibly strong monster with a really big appetite! He loves working out at the gym or at Monster beach. Rip doesn’t talk much but he’s very tough and extremely loyal to his friends. At times, can be a little dim which often results in him getting into sticky situations and mishaps!

Rip Character Image

Pop Character Image

POP - /P/ /O/ /P/

Pop is a mischievous little monster who can turn invisible in an instant. This is a very useful ability for Pop since she likes nothing better than playing tricks on others! It’s also very helpful when Tag and Jet are looking for her to clean up a mess she has made! Even when they can’t see Pop, the monsters have been known to track her down by listening very carefully…because Pop is always giggling!

BUG - /B/ /U/ /G/

Bug is one super-smart monster with a love of science and engineering. The jet pack that he built for himself means that he has the ability to fly. Bug can often be found in his workshop conducting experiments and building strange contraptions. Of course things don’t always go according to plan… his workshop has hosted the occasional explosive event!

Bug Character Image

Decodable Readers

What are Decodable Readers?

Decoding is the process of translating a printed word like "cat," into a sound. The start of this process is an understanding of the relationship between the letters (graphemes) and their sounds. Once students have received basic phonics instruction around letter-sound relationships, they can begin combining letter sounds together to make words. At this point they are ready to begin reading simple decodable texts comprised mainly of CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words like "can," "run," and "dig." As students practice reading, decoding becomes more automatic. This allows the student to focus on the meaning of the text. It’s a bit like driving a car—once the mechanics of driving become automatic, your brain is freed up to concentrate on other things, like traffic.

Phonics

What is Phonics?

Phonics is the relationship between sounds and letters. When we read and write, we need to make a connection between the letter symbol that we see and its corresponding sound. The goal of phonics instruction is to teach children that a letter (or letters) stand(s) for a particular sound. They can then use this "code" to sound out, or decode, words. Extensive research has shown that the ability to decode words is critical to success in reading. Skilled readers tend to process the letters in each word in detail while poor readers will often take a guess at words based on context clues or pictures. The more practice children have in decoding words, the quicker they develop word recognition and the bigger the improvement in reading fluency.

High-Frequency Words

What are High-Frequency Words?

High frequency words are the most commonly used words in written material. Around 50% of all text is composed of about 100 high-frequency words (for example, "the," "said," "look"). However, many of these words are difficult for early readers because they are phonetically irregular and can be difficult to sound out. These words are often called "sight words" or "tricky words." Because these words can’t be sounded out, early readers need to learn to recognize them by sight.

Word Monster Characters

The Word Monsters - Kindergarten: Series 1

Encouraging a lifelong love of reading

Hello!

Fun in the Sun

Tag's Big Bag

The Van

Can You See Me?

Pig in a Wig

Key Features

Learning to read with engaging instruction aligned to the US Common Core State Standards

Audio Reinforcement

Reading Buddy

Interactive Animations

Character Speech

Activities

Meet The Word Monsters

TAG - /T/ /A/ /G/

JET - /J/ /E/ /T/

RIP - /R/ /I/ /P/

POP - /P/ /O/ /P/

BUG - /B/ /U/ /G/

What are Decodable Readers?

What is Phonics?

What are High-Frequency Words?

Building the foundations for a life-long love of reading

What They're Saying

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