Starfall Gingerbread vs First Sight Words Professional
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Starfall Gingerbread
Children learn 2D and 3D shapes by creating and decorating virtual gingerbread cookies. They can then navigate a maze, following specific shapes or patterns, with a new maze generated each time they play.
- Create and decorate virtual gingerbread cookies
- Learn 2D and 3D shapes
- Engage in shape-following mazes
- Randomly generated maze challenges
- Color recognition activities
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The Starfall Gingerbread app is a delicious way to learn 2D and 3D shapes. Children create their own cookies, decorating them as they learn more shapes and colors. In this app edition, create a tray of gingerbread cookies, and choose a favorite cookie to run through a maze following shapes or shape patterns. Run the maze again and again, it’s different every time!
First Sight Words Professional
This app helps children develop essential reading skills by teaching over 300 common English sight words. It uses engaging visuals and sounds, along with customizable word lists, to support learning from pre-K through 3rd grade.
- Teaches over 300 Dolch List sight words
- MINSPEAK® icons for clear visual learning
- Customizable word and category management
- Supports pre-K through 3rd grade vocabulary
- Develops fine motor control and letter recognition
- Phonics or letter name options
- Choice of font styles and capitalization
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Help your kids become a great readers with First Sight Words Professional. With a focus on the core vocabulary your children will need throughout their lives, First Sight Words Professional includes over 300 of the most common words in the English language. Based on the Dolch Word List, this app uses the same child-friendly design and simple interface that made First Words one of the all-time best selling educational apps for iOS. New features make it the ideal choice for use in the classroom, the car, or on the couch: * With over 300 words, First Sight Words Professional includes five levels of core vocabulary to take your child from pre-k through 3rd grade, plus a list of nearly 100 common nouns. * Each sight word is paired with a MINSPEAK® icon. Designed by linguists, speech pathologists, and information technology experts, MINSPEAK icons provide clear graphics for the full core vocabulary. * Word management lets you choose which sight words to include in each word list. Focus on shorter words, longer words, or words with particular letter combinations. Hide words that a child finds particularly distracting and include words you'd like the child to focus on. * Category management lets you control which lists of words are visible to children using the app. You can focus on younger vocabulary, older vocabulary, or provide the full range of words. First Sight Words Professional uses uses the same intuitive interface that has made FirstWords so popular with preschoolers, kindergartners, and kids with special needs. Your child will giggle with delight at the beautifully drawn pictures and matching entertaining sounds, all the while building an excellent foundation for early language and reading fluency. First Sight Words Professional helps kids develop: * Fine Motor Control * Letter Recognition * Phonemic Awareness * Word Recognition * Reading Fluency First Sight Words Professional includes a large number options: * Phonics or Letter Names * Uppercase, Lowercase, or Capitalized Words * Spell Words Slowly or Quickly * Serif or Sans-Serif font Here's what educators and reviewers have said about earlier versions FirstWords: “FirstWords is an app that teaches letters and words in fun and interactive way. Very easy to use these apps will help support your little ones learning with great illustrations and bright colors. Each app supports kids learning and encourages kids to explore and discover by revealing, rewarding and teaching.” -- Fun Educational Apps “Excellent - As a teacher, I love this game! Just what technology was meant to do!” -- iTunes Review “This app has great settings that let you control the level of difficulty for the child – either with lots of hints or almost none at all. The letters slide nicely into each word and when completed the child is rewarded by having the pictured animal enlarge and animate briefly.” --Carisa Kluver at Digital Stortyime “FirstWords:Deluxe is a very straightforward word-building game. Words are either said letter by letter as they are dragged into the appropriate gray boxes or, if chosen in the settings, a smaller set of words can be sounded out with phonics. This makes this game a treat for both pre-readers and early spellers.” --Common Sense Media "FirstWords is a great app -- as I said at the time, 'Leo loves First Words because it's fun and easy. I love it because he's learning to spell words, and the interface makes that learning error-free.'" ---Shannon Des Roches Rosa at Squidalicious
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: First Sight Words Professional at 4.3 against Starfall Gingerbread's 2.4. Starfall Gingerbread's advantage is price ($0.99 vs $9.99). On review sentiment, ratings volume, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Starfall Gingerbread costs $0.99 and First Sight Words Professional $9.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
First Sight Words Professional holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 2.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 12 and 20 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 44% of Starfall Gingerbread's written reviews are positive against 46% of First Sight Words Professional's.
Starfall Gingerbread ships an update every 12 months, First Sight Words Professional every 21 months. Both last shipped on October 23, 2026.
| Parameter | Starfall Gingerbread | First Sight Words Professional |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 — better | $9.99 |
| Rating | 2.4 (12 ratings) | 4.3 (20 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 43.8% of reviews | 46.2% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 12 | 20 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 12 months — better | Every 21 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 12.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 26 MB | 71 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Starfall Education Foundation | Learning Touch LLC |
Customer experience
Starfall Gingerbread
First Sight Words Professional
In-app purchases
Starfall Gingerbread
No in-app purchases
First Sight Words Professional
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Starfall Gingerbread free?
Is First Sight Words Professional free?
Which has better reviews, Starfall Gingerbread or First Sight Words Professional?
Do Starfall Gingerbread or First Sight Words Professional have ads?
Which is updated more often, Starfall Gingerbread or First Sight Words Professional?
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