Press Kit
What Wonster Words Teaches, and in What Order
The app's own scope and sequence. Six levels crossed with fifteen literacy strands, every lesson named in the order Wonster Words teaches it.
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Wonster Words is organized as six levels crossed with fifteen literacy strands. The levels are Toddler, Preschool, Pre-K, Kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2, which covers grade 2 and up. Inside each strand the lessons run in a set teaching order, the one the tables below list, and the level decides which strands a child sees.
One example of what that order looks like in practice: the letters are not taught A to Z. They run a, t, b, l, i, f, p, s, o, m, r, u, h, c, g, d, n, j, v, w, e, x, k, y, z, q. Vowels come early, so that real words can be built within the first few letters, and the confusable and low-frequency letters come last.
Every table on this page lists the app’s own lesson names, in the app’s own order, as of the date above.
What your child meets at each level
These are the skills each level works on. Wherever words are on screen, from the word ladder the main game runs on at every level, your child is blending sounds into words, hearing each sound on its own as the word comes together.
- Toddler: the letter names and shapes, letter sounds, and beginning sounds cued with pictures, with listening-only activities for phonemic awareness, alongside first words, sight words, songs, and books.
- Preschool: everything Toddler works on, plus rhyming.
- Pre-K: the letter sounds with lowercase and uppercase, beginning and ending sounds, the short vowel sounds, rhyming, sight words, and the first spelling rules.
- Kindergarten: a phonics lesson for every letter sound, word families, short and long vowels, digraphs, consonant blends, letter reversals, rhyming, sight words, and spelling rules.
- Grade 1: the vowel teams and diphthongs, r-controlled vowels, silent-e families, glued sounds, silent letters, trigraphs, and the FLOSS spelling rules, while Kindergarten’s word families, vowels, digraphs, and blends stay open.
- Grade 2: the three-letter blends and a second-grade set of vowel teams, while every Grade 1 strand stays open.
The app shows a child a map of sections, and each level arranges its topics on that map in its own way. So the table starts from the topic instead: each row is a literacy topic, the levels that teach it, and the section of the map where your child finds it at those levels.
| Learning topic | Levels | Section |
|---|---|---|
| Letter names and shapes | Toddler, Preschool | Learn To Read |
| Letter sounds | Toddler, Preschool | Learn To Read |
| Letter sound and case | Pre-K, Kindergarten | Learn To Read |
| Beginning sounds | Toddler–Kindergarten | Learn To Read |
| Ending sounds and short vowel sounds | Pre-K | Learn To Read |
| Rhymes | Preschool–Kindergarten | Practice Spelling |
| Word families | Kindergarten | More Phonics |
| Word families (advanced) | Grade 1, Grade 2 | More Games |
| Short and long vowels | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | More Phonics |
| Vowel teams and diphthongs | Grade 1, Grade 2 | More Phonics |
| Digraphs | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | More Phonics |
| Silent-letter digraphs, qu, and trigraphs | Grade 1, Grade 2 | More Phonics |
| Two-letter blends | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | More Phonics |
| Three-letter blends | Grade 2 | More Phonics |
| R-controlled vowels | Grade 1, Grade 2 | More Phonics |
| Sight words | Toddler–Pre-K | Practice Spelling |
| Sight words (advanced) | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Learn To Read |
| Spelling rules and practice | Pre-K–Grade 2 | Learn To Read |
| Letter reversals | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Learn To Read |
| Words (easy) | Toddler–Pre-K | Learn To Read |
| Words | Kindergarten | Practice Spelling |
| Words (advanced) | Grade 1, Grade 2 | Learn To Read |
| Original stories | Kindergarten | Practice Spelling |
| Original stories | Grade 1, Grade 2 | Learn To Read |
| Word search | Kindergarten | Practice Spelling |
| Word search (advanced) | Grade 1, Grade 2 | More Games |
| Books | Toddler–Kindergarten | Practice Spelling |
| Books (advanced) | Grade 1, Grade 2 | Learn To Read |
Where a topic moves to a different section as your child moves up, it has a row for each. “(easy)” and “(advanced)” mark where it also changes sets: Introductory and Basic Words before Kindergarten, the higher More Challenging word sets, the grade-level Dolch lists, Word Search Level 3, and the grade-level book shelves. Word families (advanced) is the 23 kindergarten families plus the glued sounds, silent-e, and second-grade families added at Grade 1. Kindergarten’s beginning sounds are on the map as Phonics, the name the section uses for them from that level. From Grade 1 the map has no Practice Spelling section: sight words, words, stories, and books move up into Learn To Read, and word families and word search move to More Games.
The word families, vowels, digraphs, and blends that open at Kindergarten stay open through Grade 2, so a first grader can go back to word families and short vowels whenever they need to.
Every level also carries Our World, More Fun, and Additional Learning, the sections that add a light touch of math and science alongside the reading.
Where to start
Pick the level that matches your child’s age, then open the strand that matches what they are working on. A child who needs digraphs opens digraphs. A child who is solid on letter sounds but is still mixing up the short vowels opens the Middle Sound lessons at Pre-K. Your child starts where they actually are, and nothing has to be ground through first.
The app is customized at setup from the answers you give about your child, and opens at the level you pick. You can change the level at any time.
Letters, and the sounds they make
Wonster Words gives each letter one lesson, named for both cases, lowercase first. At Toddler and Preschool that lesson works the letter name and shape, and a Letter Sound lesson works the letter sound on its own. From Pre-K the same letter’s lesson runs the sound, then lowercase, then uppercase, then mixed case. The order is the one the table gives, which is not A to Z, and it is the same 26 letters at every level from Toddler to Kindergarten. What changes is what the lesson asks about each one.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Letter shapes | Toddler, Preschool | Letter Shapes |
| Letter names and shapes | Toddler, Preschool | a, A · t, T · b, B · l, L · i, I · f, F · p, P · s, S · o, O · m, M · r, R · u, U · h, H · c, C · g, G · d, D · n, N · j, J · v, V · w, W · e, E · x, X · k, K · y, Y · z, Z · q, Q |
| Letter sound, lowercase, uppercase, mixed case | Pre-K, Kindergarten | a, A · t, T · b, B · l, L · i, I · f, F · p, P · s, S · o, O · m, M · r, R · u, U · h, H · c, C · g, G · d, D · n, N · j, J · v, V · w, W · e, E · x, X · k, K · y, Y · z, Z · q, Q |
| Letter Sound, the sound on its own | Toddler, Preschool | Letter Sounds |
Early phonics, and phonics
Early Phonics is where the youngest levels work on beginning sounds, the sound at the start of a word, cued with a picture of something familiar rather than with text, so a child who cannot read yet can still take part. Some of these activities, and some in Letter Sound, are listening only, with a picture and a sound and no letter on screen: that is phonemic awareness, the work of hearing the sounds in a word. Pre-K adds ending sounds, in seven End Sound lessons, and the short vowel sounds, in five Middle Sound lessons, one for each vowel. At Kindergarten the beginning sounds move up into phonics, with a lesson for every letter sound.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Beginning sound, picture-cued | Toddler, Preschool | a Sound · t Sound · b Sound · l Sound · i Sound · f Sound · p Sound · s Sound · o Sound · m Sound · r Sound · u Sound · h Sound · c Sound · g Sound · d Sound · n Sound · j Sound · v Sound · w Sound · e Sound · x Sound · k Sound · y Sound · z Sound · q Sound |
| Beginning sound | Pre-K | a Sound · t Sound · b Sound · l Sound · i Sound · f Sound · p Sound · s Sound · o Sound · m Sound · r Sound · u Sound · h Sound · c Sound · g Sound · d Sound · n Sound · j Sound · v Sound · w Sound · e Sound · x Sound · k Sound · y Sound · z Sound · q Sound |
| Ending sound | Pre-K | End Sound: m · End Sound: t · End Sound: p · End Sound: n · End Sound: g · End Sound: b · End Sound: d |
| Short vowel sounds | Pre-K | Middle Sound: a · Middle Sound: e · Middle Sound: i · Middle Sound: o · Middle Sound: u |
| Phonics | Kindergarten | Featured · a Sound · t Sound · b Sound · l Sound · i Sound · f Sound · p Sound · s Sound · o Sound · m Sound · r Sound · u Sound · h Sound · c Sound · g Sound · d Sound · n Sound · j Sound · v Sound · w Sound · e Sound · x Sound · k Sound · y Sound · z Sound · q Sound |
Rhymes
Rhyming runs from Preschool through Kindergarten: eight rhyme families, from -at to -ut, and a shelf of rhyming storybooks.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Rhyme families | Preschool–Kindergarten | -at · -ad · -ap · -et · -it · -ot · -op · -ut · Rhyming Books |
Word families
Word families open at Kindergarten with 23 families, starting at -at. First grade adds three more sets: glued sounds, where the vowel changes before the n or ng that follows it and the chunk is taught whole rather than sounded out letter by letter; the silent-e families; and a second-grade set.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Word families | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | -at · -ad · -ap · -ab · -ar · -ed · -et · -en · -eg · -it · -id · -in · -ip · -op · -ot · -od · -og · -ob · -on · -ut · -up · -un · -ub |
| Glued sounds | Grade 1, Grade 2 | -am · -an · -all · -ank · -ink · -onk · -unk · -ang · -ing · -ong · -ung |
| Silent-e families | Grade 1, Grade 2 | -ice · -ine · -ide · -ale · -ame · -ate · -oke |
| Second-grade families | Grade 1, Grade 2 | -ax · -ix · -ox · -ld · -lt · -nt · -ack · -ick · -ock · -uck · -ell · -ill · -ain · -ash · -eat · -ight · -ump |
Vowels
Short vowels and long vowels open at Kindergarten. First grade adds the vowel teams, split by whether the team spells one sound or several, and the diphthongs, and Grade 2 adds a second-grade set of teams. The games play one recording per letter team, so a team is heard as a single sound rather than as two letters.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Short vowels | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Short a · Short e · Short i · Short o · Short u |
| Long vowels | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Long a · Long e · Long i · Long o · Long u |
| Vowel teams, one sound | Grade 1, Grade 2 | ai · ay · ee · oa · oe |
| Vowel teams, more than one sound | Grade 1, Grade 2 | aw · au · ea (long e sound) · ea (short e sound) · ea (long a sound) · oo (long sound) · oo (short sound) · oo (schwa sound) · ou (long o) · ou (long u) · ou (short u) · ow |
| Diphthongs | Grade 1, Grade 2 | oi · oy · ow (gliding vowel) · ou (gliding vowel) |
| Second-grade vowel teams | Grade 2 | ew · ie · ue · ui · ei · ey |
Digraphs and trigraphs
A digraph is two letters that spell one sound. Wonster Words opens the h-brothers, ck, and gh at Kindergarten, then adds qu, the silent letters (kn, mb, wr, and gn), and the two trigraphs at first grade. The th sound is two lessons, voiced and unvoiced, because they are two different sounds spelled the same way. The Common Core’s first-grade foundational-skills standard, RF.1.3a, is where digraphs are named as a first-grade expectation; ours open a year earlier and stay available.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| H-brother digraphs | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | ch · sh · wh · ph · th (unvoiced) · th (voiced) |
| Silent-letter digraphs | Grade 1, Grade 2 | kn · mb · wr · gn |
| qu | Grade 1, Grade 2 | qu |
| Other digraphs | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | ck · gh |
| Trigraphs | Grade 1, Grade 2 | tch · dge |
Consonant blends
Wonster Words teaches a lesson for each of 25 consonant blends: the two-letter blends from Kindergarten, and the three-letter blends at Grade 2. The blends at the end of a word are taught as word families: -ld, -lt, and -nt in the second-grade set, and the -nk and -ng chunks as glued sounds.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Two-letter blends | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | bl · cl · fl · gl · pl · sl · br · cr · dr · fr · pr · tr · gr · sc · sk · sp · st · sm · sn · sw · tw |
| Three-letter blends | Grade 2 | scr · spr · str · spl |
R-controlled vowels, or bossy r
R-controlled vowels open at Grade 1, with one lesson for each of the five spellings. The -are, -ere, -ire, -ore, and -ure family set sits beside them in the same strand.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| R-controlled vowels | Grade 1, Grade 2 | ar · er · ir · ur · or |
| R-controlled families | Grade 1, Grade 2 | are · ere · ire · ore · ure |
Sight words
Sight words run from Toddler, and the sets are the Dolch list, Edward Dolch’s 1936 list of 220 service words plus 95 nouns, and they run from an introductory set at Toddler to a third-grade set. A parent can also enter their own list, such as the week’s words from school, and the app builds games from it. The Common Core names high-frequency words as a kindergarten skill (RF.K.3c); the Dolch sets here start well before kindergarten and run through third grade.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Introductory | Toddler–Pre-K | Introductory Dolch Sight Words |
| Basic | Toddler–Grade 1 | Basic Dolch Sight Words |
| Grade 1 | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Grade 1 Dolch Sight Words |
| Grade 2 | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Grade 2 Dolch Sight Words |
| Grade 3 | Grade 1, Grade 2 | Grade 3 Dolch Sight Words |
| Themed | Not tied to a level | Fun Sight Words |
Spelling
Spelling rules start at Pre-K: 14 rule lessons from Pre-K to Grade 2, one rule each, with the FLOSS rule (ss, ff, ll, and zz) from Grade 1. Letter reversals open at Kindergarten, with a lesson for each pair a child mixes up, such as b and d, and a set of spelling practice lessons is grouped by first letter. The rule lessons build a word from sound units, so a pattern like ff moves as one piece and the gaps a child fills are the letters the rule decides.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Spelling practice | Pre-K–Grade 2 | Basic Spelling · A–C · D–L · M–R · S–T · U–Z |
| Letter reversals | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | b vs d · p vs q · m vs w · n vs u · b, d, p, q |
| Spelling rules, first set | Pre-K–Grade 1 | qu: ‘q’ is followed by ‘u’ · Don’t end with ‘i’. Use ‘-ie’ or ‘-y’. · Don’t end with ‘v’. Use ‘-ve’. · Don’t end with ‘j’. Use ‘-dge’ or ‘ge’. · ‘ck’ vs ‘c’ · When ‘c’ makes ‘s’ sound · When ‘g’ makes ‘j’ sound |
| Spelling rules, second set | Grade 1, Grade 2 | ’ss’ vs ‘s’ · ‘ff’ vs ‘f’ · ‘ll’ vs ‘l’ · ‘zz’ vs ‘z’ · ‘dge’ vs ‘ge’ · ‘tch’ vs ‘ch’ · When ‘s’ makes ‘z’ sound |
Words, stories, and word search
The words the app teaches are themselves a sequence, and it is the one its main game runs on: a ladder from Introductory Words up to More Challenging Words 4. It is where the skills above come together in blending: as a word comes together, your child hears each sound on its own. From Kindergarten there are also six original stories built from the words a child has been working on, and a word search at three levels.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Word ladder | Toddler–Pre-K | Introductory Words · Basic Words |
| Word ladder | Toddler–Kindergarten | More Challenging Words 1 |
| Word ladder | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | More Challenging Words 2 |
| Word ladder | Grade 1, Grade 2 | More Challenging Words 3 · More Challenging Words 4 |
| Themed words | Pre-K–Grade 2 | More Fun Words! |
| Original stories | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Story: Happy Birthday Frank! · Story: Ari’s Space Adventure · Story: The Christmas Story · Story: Patti’s Tomb Adventure · Story: Camping Adventure · Story: 1. 2. 3. Race! |
| Word search | Kindergarten, Grade 1 | Word Search Level 1 |
| Word search | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Word Search Level 2 |
| Word search | Grade 1, Grade 2 | Word Search Level 3 |
Books
Wonster Words has a book section of its own, with levelled books on shelves that step up by reading level from A to G, and Chat Fictions from Grade 1.
| Lesson set | Levels | Lessons, in order |
|---|---|---|
| Wonster | Not tied to a level | Wonster Books |
| Songs | Toddler–Pre-K | Songs |
| Introductory | Toddler–Pre-K | Introductory Books |
| Levelled | Toddler–Kindergarten | Books (level A) |
| Levelled | Pre-K, Kindergarten | Books (level B) · Books (level C) |
| Levelled | Pre-K–Grade 1 | Books (level D) |
| Levelled | Kindergarten–Grade 2 | Grade Books (level E) · Grade Books (level F) |
| Levelled | Grade 1, Grade 2 | Grade Books (level G) |
| Chat fiction | Grade 1, Grade 2 | Chat Fictions |
Questions parents ask
Can one subscription work for a 4-year-old and a 6-year-old at their own levels?
Yes, and the level table on this page is how you check it. Each child has their own profile and their own level, so the 4-year-old is on Pre-K and the 6-year-old on Grade 1, and the two see different sections of the app.
Can a child move between levels?
Yes. The level is a setting, not a result, and you can change it. Nothing has to be finished before a strand opens, and no lesson is locked behind another.
How do I tell which level to start at?
Start from the age the level is named for. Toddler is usually 2, Preschool 3, Pre-K 4, and Kindergarten 5. Then look at what that level opens and compare it to what your child can already do: if they are solid on the letter sounds that level teaches, start at the level above.
Does this line up with what my child is doing at school?
Compare the strand tables to the skills your child’s school names. The levels are named for American grades, the sight-word sets are Dolch, and digraphs open at Kindergarten, a year before the Common Core names them, so the vocabulary will be familiar. Wonster Words is built for a child to play on their own, alongside whatever you or the school are teaching.
How current is this page?
The date under the title is the date every table on it was read from the app’s catalog. The page is updated when the app’s lessons change, and reviewed with the rest of the press kit.