[LRUG] [Jobs] Teach Your Monster to Read: Small agency / team required to help us scale up

[Ronny Ager-Wick]

I just heard about Teach Your Monster to Read via the original post, and 
immediately put my 5 year old son in front of it. He's in exactly the right 
stage, knows most of the sounds already, can read some words, and loves 
repetition! To provide some real user feedback from someone in the target 
audience, this is definitely a hit! He liked it right away, and completely 
forgot that I closed his cartoons on YouTube to show him this. This game is 
really very well made!

To continue the OT discussion. My experience is that /when/ a child is 
mentally ready to start reading varies greatly, but it doesn't matter. The 
final outcome is not given by the starting age. The all learn it eventually, 
and because interests come and go, an early start does not necessarily mean 
they'll be better 10 years later, and vice versa. But when they're ready, I 
see no reason to deprive them of material. As they not only tolerate, but even 
enjoy repetition up to around 6-7 years old, it's a huge advantage if they 
start learning to read before that, as it involves a lot of repetition. When 
the can play a game like this and learn at the same time, why stop them?

I totally agree with the balance sentiment. I have let my children play with 
computers from a very early age, but I don't use them as a way to keep them 
quiet (trust me, they're far from quiet!). They cycle, play with 
sand/soil/mud, play games outside with the neighborhood kids, etc. Computers 
and tablets and the like give them something else to do when they can't play 
outside, as they don't have TV (good riddance!). Plus, if you can manage to 
keep them from watching YouTube all day (which is almost as bad as TV, bar the 
passiveness of just sitting and receiving), they also might just learn 
something useful!

Other feedback; the generated passwords are a bit complicated for small 
children to type by themselves.

Ronny.



On 11/06/14 20:59, Rory Sinclair wrote:
> I don't see why its an absurdity - many kids start primary school at 5, and 
> reading and writing are fundamental skills to learn in early years.  If the 
> kid is ready to take on reading (even very basic stuff, eg the word 'Ball' 
> beside a picture of a ball, etc) then why not?
>
> My eldest son was reading at 3, and is now 8 - his primary school teacher 
> says he's reading at the level of a Primary 5, although he's in Primary 3. 
>  I don't think there's any sense in trying to prevent development - if he's 
> ready, he's ready.  My youngest is 3 now, and doesn't have nearly the same 
> grasp of reading yet, but its absolutely not something i'm concerned about. 
>  He does, however, have an intense fascination with things like iPhones and 
> iPads, which I think is something perhaps to ration, though not actually 
> prevent.
>
> Cheers
>
> -- 
> Rory Sinclair
> Head of Technology
> ASMALLWORLD
>
> On Wednesday, 11 June 2014 at 12:21, Hakan Ensari wrote:
>
>> This is off-topic, but do you want to teach your monster to read at age 
>> FOUR? Do you even want them to sit in front of a computer screen at that age?
>>
>> My son is in pre-school (Lauriston, anyone?), and we're having to deal with 
>> the immense absurdity of an public educational system that thinks it's 
>> priority to teach five-year-olds to read and write rather than have them 
>> play, make things with their hands, socialise and generally get settled.
>>
>> Sorry for flaming. Consider it customer feedback, assuming your real 
>> customers are the parents who are freaking out why their kids are not 
>> liking phonics and have yet to make the leap to a Steiner school or some 
>> other private refuge.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 11 June 2014 09:45, Antonio <antonio at teachyourmonstertoread.com 
>> <mailto:antonio at teachyourmonstertoread.com>> wrote:
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> We have developed a product called Teach Your Monster to Read, a 
>>> BAFTA-nominated educational game which helps 4-6 year olds practise the 
>>> key first stages of reading.
>>>
>>> http://teachyourmonstertoread.com
>>>
>>> It's a free game, and has been funded by a literacy charity founded by 
>>> Peter Usborne (of Usborne Publishing).
>>>
>>> We're growing year on year, and we need some support in keeping our 
>>> Rails-based server side component up and running as we scale up.
>>>
>>> I'm looking for a small company or team that has some specialism in 
>>> supporting sites in this way.
>>>
>>> I've put further details in this Google Doc. If you're interested, see my 
>>> contact details at the bottom of the document (please do this rather than 
>>> reply to all obviously!)
>>>
>>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jh_PMIb8geFtQbTpn1GrD5oA8g3phRgTzqTIKDlpTTE/edit#
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>>
>>> Antonio
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Antonio Gould
>>> Producer: Teach Your Monster to Read
>>> http://teachyourmonstertoread.com
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Chat mailing list
>>> Chat at lists.lrug.org <mailto:Chat at lists.lrug.org>
>>> http://lists.lrug.org/listinfo.cgi/chat-lrug.org
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> Chat at lists.lrug.org <mailto:Chat at lists.lrug.org>
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>
>
>
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