I stumbled on the Speech Monsters by chance, I was in a book shop with my kids and the product just happened to be having it's official launch at the time. I went home and researched it and took a chance.
I work in the SEN Dept in my primary school and I brought the idea the head of the SEN Dept and we decide to take a chance and invest in the package.
We are really happy with the product,we had bought it originally with the intention of supporting children who struggle with language and literacy but we are now trialling it in our Junior Infants for the last term of school.
Personally, I have gotten an awful lot from the package. I know that the kids I work with love the videos and it breaks down the sounds a lot better than I can. I have actually learned a lot and I've changed my approach to how I would teach phonics. It has given me a structure for my phonics lessons and I'm really enjoying the consistency of the package.
It is currently being trialled in one classroom and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback, especially in relation to the daily activities and the book recommendations.The schools middle management will discuss at the end of term whether or not we will run the program across all of our infant classes but I'm confident we will go ahead with it. Phonics was a target in a recent SSE plan and we already had a 10 minute slot allocated specifically for phonics, every day at 10am. The Speech Monsters pack just fits perfectly.
I'm really happy with the package, the kids love the actual monsters themselves.They love using them in their free play at the end of lessons, they try to mimic the videos, it's hilarious. I've gotten a lot of praise for introducing the product to the school and I'd strongly recommend it