Rainbow Sentences vs Keyword Understanding
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Rainbow Sentences
This app uses color-coded visual cues to help students construct grammatically correct sentences. It breaks down sentence parts like who, what, and where, allowing users to build and record sentences in their own voice. Designed for young learners, it offers interactive lessons and engaging rewards.
- Color-coded sentence parts
- Drag and drop sentence creation
- Audio support for words
- Sentence recording and saving
- 6 levels of sentence complexity
- Pictograph lessons
- Earnable puzzle piece rewards
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Own as an individual app or as part of our MES Speech Therapy Bundle. Winner - 2012 Best Language Development App - Technology in Special Education Finalist - Best Education App of 2012 - Best Apps Ever Rainbow Sentences is designed to help students improve their ability to construct grammatically correct sentences by using color coded visual cues. The who, what, where, and why parts of sentences are color coded to help students recognize and understand how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure. Students will learn how to recognize the parts of sentences such as nouns, verbs, and prepositions, improve their understanding of how combinations of these parts create basic sentence structure. Students have the opportunity to record their sentences in their own voice to improve their receptive and expressive language skills. Rainbow Sentences offers a unique environment for improving a student's ability to create grammatically correct sentences. FEATURES -168 images to create sentence from -Intuitive drag and drop to create sentences -Words are spoken as they are being dragged for non readers -Words can be color coded for added visual support -Word groups can be selected to simplify sentence construction -6 levels of sentence complexity -Pictograph lessons to help students learn proper sentence construction -Record feature allows students to record sentences in their own voice -Save and email recorded sentences -Students earn puzzle pieces during play to encourage continued play -Puzzles come to life once level is complete LANGUAGES - English REQUIREMENTS - Compatible with iPad - Requires iPad 11 software update Mobile Education Store is a member of Moms with Apps, a collaborative group of family-friendly developers seeking to promote quality apps for kids and families. Recommended Ages: 3-6, 6-10 Categories: Special Needs, Education
Keyword Understanding
This app helps users of all ages improve their ability to understand spoken and written directions. It features various activities targeting vocabulary, basic concepts, and sequential instructions, making it beneficial for individuals with listening comprehension or processing difficulties.
- Follow spoken and written directions
- Improve vocabulary and basic concepts
- Target auditory attention and working memory
- Activities for one and two-step directions
- Temporal and sequential direction practice
- Comprehension check for vocabulary and concepts
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“This app is great for children with processing difficulties which need to improve their ability to follow directions with a variety of embedded concepts.” ~ Smart Speech Therapy blog “Every child I have used it with has been very engaged by the lovely, brightly-colored pictures, and has quite happily kept on listening and following the instructions.” ~ Speech Blog UK “It can be used for informal assessments, language therapy and home practice. It can also be used to target auditory attention and working memory for cognitive-communication goals.” ~ Speaking of Apps blog Keyword Understanding is a professional speech and language therapy app that targets the ability to understand sentences and follow spoken and written directions of increasing difficulty. Children and adults are asked to follow directions in their everyday lives. In order to follow directions, the child or adult requires a strong knowledge of vocabulary, basic concepts and the ability to process and retain the information they have listened to or read. WHO IS KEYWORD UNDERSTANDING FOR? - Parents - Teachers - Speech language pathologists / Speech and language therapists - Children with reduced attention and listening comprehension or auditory processing difficulties - Children with receptive language delay, developmental language delay or autism - Adults with mild to moderate aphasia due to stroke or traumatic brain injury - Adults with cognitive-communication difficulties due to stroke or traumatic brain injury WHAT COMPREHENSION ACTIVITIES ARE INCLUDED IN KEYWORD UNDERSTANDING? Comprehension Check: This activity helps you identify where comprehension breaks down. It checks the understanding of individual vocabulary items, and the basic concepts of size and color. Object, Size & Color: This activity works on the understanding of the basic concepts of size and color as well as the ability to follow one and two-step directions of increasing difficulty. 2 keyword level: Touch the green car 3 keyword level: Touch the big red mug 4 keyword level: Touch the green vase and the yellow cushion 6 keyword level: Touch the small pink gloves and the big blue comb Before & After: This activity works on the ability to understand and follow temporal directions (directions which include the concepts before/after in a variety of positions in the sentence). “Before you touch the t-shirt, touch the phone” “After you touch the lamp, touch the vase”, “Touch the flower before you touch the box”, “Touch the sock after you touch the bucket”. First & Then: This activity works on the ability to understand and follow sequential directions (directions which include the concepts first/then in the sentence). “First touch the ladder, then touch the bike”. WHAT LANGUAGE & COGNITIVE SKILLS DOES KEYWORD UNDERSTANDING TARGET? - Vocabulary - Listening / Auditory Comprehension - Reading Comprehension - Working Memory - Attention to Detail - Language Processing - Basic Concepts / Adjectives (size, color) - Temporal Directions (Before/After) - Sequential Directions (First… Then) FEATURES 3 modes: - Listening/ Auditory Only: Match the spoken direction to the picture(s) - Reading Only: Match the written direction to the picture(s) - Listening and Reading: Match the spoken and written directions to the picture(s) Keyword Understanding lets you: - Choose from a variety of vocabulary items in different sizes and five different colors allowing for thousands of following directions tasks - Follow directions of increasing difficulty and length - Add individual user profiles - Automatically track correct and incorrect responses of each user - Email a detailed result summary after a session or at a later date - Receive audio feedback for correct answers only, incorrect answers only or both All Aptus Speech Therapy apps participate in the 50% off Volume Purchase Program. Visit our website for more details about our other speech and language therapy apps.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Rainbow Sentences at 94% against Keyword Understanding's 25%. Rainbow Sentences also leads on price ($9.99 vs $17.99) and ratings volume (15 vs 3). Keyword Understanding's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 3.7) and device support (3 vs 1). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Rainbow Sentences costs $9.99 and Keyword Understanding $17.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Keyword Understanding holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Rainbow Sentences has 15 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 94% of Rainbow Sentences's written reviews are positive against 25% of Keyword Understanding's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Rainbow Sentences ships an update every 6 months, Keyword Understanding every 10 months. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Rainbow Sentences | Keyword Understanding |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 — better | $17.99 |
| Rating | 3.7 (15 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 94.4% of reviews — better | 25.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 15 — better | 3 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months — better | Every 10 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 179 MB | 64 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Mobile Education Store LLC | Aptus Speech and Language Therapy Limited |
Customer experience
Rainbow Sentences
Keyword Understanding
Bugs and requests
Rainbow Sentences
Reported bugs
15 issues- Advertisement cannot be gotten rid of
- App loads into settings
- Program loads into settings options
- Advertisement for another Mobile app that cannot be gotten rid of
- App description page only scrolls partway
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- App does not work at all
- Only get a picture and no words
- Email stats button not working
- Unable to email stats
- Screen not displaying correctly
- Problem with iPad settings
- Cannot go from sentence building to settings or statistics page until/unless sentence is correctly built
- Play Lesson button placement issue
- Difficulty dragging words
- Color scheme does not match industry standard Fitzgerald Key
Requested features
31 requests- Remove ads from paid app
- Set app to load into play mode by default
- Restrict settings for adults only
- Add questions and past/future tenses
- Make pictures more age-appropriate for high school
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- Turn off the puzzle feature
- Move 'Play Lesson' button
- Add foreign language versions
- Vocalize words when first selected
- Categorize words by parts of speech
- Provide definitions of parts of speech
- Add more levels with additional parts of speech
- Option to remove picture clue
- Move text placement lines closer to picture
- Enlarge text size
- Words on the bottom of the screen to speak when touched
- Set custom color coding
- Accommodate different country spellings
- More sentences required for each reinforcer/puzzle piece
- More immediate feedback with each correct answer
- Words at the bottom of the picture spoken instead of printed
- Option to auto-advance to the next level
- Make the child place the puzzle piece themselves
- Variety of praise statements instead of just 'That's right'
- More reward puzzles per level
- Multi-player option
- Option to move a word back to the word bank
- Allow children to place earned puzzle pieces themselves
- More interest level choices for sentences
- Different country spellings
- More levels with increased difficulty for older users
Keyword Understanding
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Rainbow Sentences
No in-app purchases
Keyword Understanding
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Rainbow Sentences free?
Is Keyword Understanding free?
Which has better reviews, Rainbow Sentences or Keyword Understanding?
Do Rainbow Sentences or Keyword Understanding have ads?
Which is updated more often, Rainbow Sentences or Keyword Understanding?
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