Teach You Monster is a non-profit that creates magical, fun-filled learning games for kids. I worked with the team over several years to bring creative strategy, research and design advisory to the team, helping them go from their single ground-breaking game, Teach Your Monster to Read, to a multi-product organisation, with a child-centred methodology, dedicated team and a clear mission to create games that support millions of children’s wellbeing.
Teach Your Monster are part of The Usborne Foundation, a charity started by Peter Usborne CBE of Usborne Publishing to develop creative and innovative responses to challenges faced in early years education. The first game, Teach Your Monster to Read, went on to help over 30 million children on the first crucial steps of their reading journey. Since launch, it has been played over 300 million times and has helped 2 million children learn to read every month.
As a team, we worked to diversify the organisation’s areas of focus, beyond learning to read, to explore a wider range of learning challenges in exciting ways, expanding the family of games to include others, from numeracy to nutrition. We brought together a diverse group of collaborators, including experts in child psychology, nutrition and education, alongside game developers, animators, designers, authors and musicians to create evidence-based and delightful products.
The new family of games were created with the guidance of world-leading academics and literacy and wellbeing experts, then beautifully crafted, with friendly monster characters, playful design and storytelling. I supported in creating and testing Reading for Fun, a game to ignite a love of reading, and Number Skills, to master early mathematics. I led the research and design of Adventurous Eating, a digital product that helps get kids excited about fruit and vegetables. The game was co-created with behavioural science expert Dr Lucy Cooke and encourages kids to explore a wider variety of fruits and vegetables through sensory-based play, supporting early food confidence and curiosity.
Alongside the development of specific products, I worked to help shape the future direction for the organisation and their methodology for research, design, testing and development of products. This included defining the strategies and theories of change for new products, leading the rebrand of Teach Your Monster and working with the team to embed design-led, agile ways into how they work.
“As an organisation we are proud of our methodology which puts children at the center of the creative process. Our creative teams have support to become experts working in collaboration with expert educational advisors. Player testing in classrooms is built into the process from the very start.”
Antonio Gould
Executive Director,
Usborne Foundation
“Laura is one of the best design thinking practitioners I’ve worked with. She can work through really complex problems cleanly, without fuss or overblown process and deliver clear, really well-communicated concepts and strategies. She is experienced, knowledgeable and lean. She knows her tools, but also when to use and adapt them – rare but vital for designers. She’s also just really enjoyable to work with. I would highly recommend her.”
Antonio Gould
Executive Director, Usborne Foundation