‘Hey Monster!’ Uses Your Child’s Creativity to Teach Early Literacy

Just in time for the back-to-school season, TechSpaghetti has released its latest app, Hey Monster!, to help children and non-English speakers learn basic sight words by tapping into the user’s creativity through a series of fun scenarios. Hey Monster! is targeted for children ages four to eight years old.

My youngest daughter just turned seven years old in June, so she falls squarely into the app’s target age range. Having assisted me with the review of Story Lab back in February of this year, her first statement when Hey Monster! opened and the music began was, “Oh, this is like that other app.” Hey Monster! maintains TechSpaghetti’s high-quality production values in terms of sound and visuals. I believe the same voice actor provides the narration for Hey Monster! that worked on Story Lab, so if your child is familiar with the latter, then he or she will find the art style here instantly recognizable.

What the TechSpaghetti team has done with Hey Monster! is eliminate the sometimes ambiguous right/wrong nature of Story Lab by removing those elements altogether and emphasizing creativity. There is no right nor wrong answer to which color to make the dog or which set of ears to plop onto your monster. Hey Monster! makes it clear which words are the key words that children are to pick up and reinforces those words by allowing children to customize the on-screen choices associated with each. “Bird” always refers to the bird, no matter how your child chooses to represent the bird.

By playing through the different scenes, users are rewarded with additional customizations for their chosen character, providing the player with more options the further they play through the app. The first scenario is free with the download of Hey Monster!, and subscribers receive new content every week.

Parents looking to give their children a fun, creative outlet that aids in early literacy by exposing and reinforcing connections to early sight word reading can download Hey Monster! for free on the iTunes app store.