Comparison

READING MAGIC 2 vs Planet Lettra

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

READING MAGIC 2

This app helps children master consonant blends, a key skill for reading success. It offers interactive modes for blending sounds, segmenting words, and independent reading practice with over 300 words and engaging themes.

Highlights
  • Blending Mode for sound practice
  • Segmenting Mode for word breakdown
  • Reading Mode for independent word reading
  • Focus on CCVC and CVCC words
  • Advanced consonant blend practice
  • Over 300 words with male/female voices
  • Themed lessons for engagement
Features
Read full description

Unlock the Magic of Reading with READING MAGIC 2! Transform your child into a confident reader with READING MAGIC 2! This app makes learning to read an exciting adventure with interactive activities focused on CCVC (Consonant-Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) and CVCC short-vowel blend words. Meticulously designed to provide an advanced boost to your child’s phonemic awareness, this app combines three foundational pillars of literacy science into one powerful, interactive ecosystem: Blending (Listening), Segmenting (Speaking), and Decoding (Reading). Grounded firmly in Science of Reading principles and utilizing University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) guidelines, READING MAGIC provides specific, precise training with extensive repetitions to help young brains bridge the gap between spoken sound units and complete words. IDEAL FOR BOTH BEGINNING PRE-READERS AND STRUGGLING READERS For Beginning Pre-Readers: A stress-free launchpad. By practicing words through pure sound sequences first, your child masters the internal mechanics of reading without cognitive overload. This keeps them from being frustrated by trying to learn separate, difficult skills at the same time. For Struggling or Remedial Readers: If your child's reading is hesitant or choppy, or if they guess at words, this app provides the targeted intervention recommended by modern reading science to help young brains bridge the gap. THREE CRITICAL SKILL-BUILDING PILLARS While many phonics programs completely overlook the auditory mechanics of reading, our program systematically guides your child through the complete progression of decoding: Skill 1: Blending (Listening): Interactive listening activities train your child’s neural processing ability to hear isolated sounds in words and join them together mentally. This builds the vital auditory runway required for future fluency. Skill 2: Segmenting (Speaking): True spelling and reading independence require the ability to pull spoken words apart into their individual sound units. These exercises build explicit awareness of the acoustic structure of language. Skill 3: Decoding (Reading): The ultimate bridge to literacy. Your child applies their mastery of blending and segmenting directly to text, smoothly moving from spoken sounds to visual words. STRUCTURAL SPACING & INSTRUCTION (Science-Backed Layout) Our app builds the actual findings of reading science directly into the user interface for maximum visual clarity: Anti-Crowding Design: Peer-reviewed research, including Marinus et al. (2016) and Wery & Diliberto (2017), demonstrates that generous letter spacing is critical for early decoding. By placing each letter on its own isolated card with distinct physical gaps, our layout eliminates visual crowding, allowing your child to isolate each sound unit cleanly. True Comprehension: The app strictly discourages picture guessing, forcing children to rely purely on their decoding skills to foster true comprehension and build lasting confidence. INDEPENDENT LEARNING & AESTHETIC SIMPLICITY Distraction-Free: Our minimalist design eliminates overstimulating audio-visual clutter, excessive sound effects, and animations to keep your child entirely focused on the mechanics of reading. Stress-Free Growth: Built-in natural feedback loops offer gentle corrections, nurturing self-discovery and independent learning at your child's own pace. EXPERT RESEARCH BACKING "Before a child can read fluently with their eyes, they must be able to blend fluently with their ears. Weakness in auditory blending is one of the strongest early predictors of later reading failure." — Dr. Joseph Torgesen, Florida State University. "Teaching students to blend and segment benefited their reading much more than did a multiple-skills approach... and teaching phonemic awareness with letters created effect sizes almost twice as large as teaching children without letters." — The National Reading Panel (NRP) Meta-Analysis

About

Planet Lettra

This app provides a playful environment for children to experiment with building words. It uses interactive letter bubbles to help young learners develop reading fluency and phonics skills in a stress-free, musical setting.

Highlights
  • Interactive letter bubbles for word creation
  • Supports English, French, and Spanish
  • Recognizes over 100,000 words per language
  • Focuses on sight words and letter blends
  • Musical and soothing sound environment
  • No time limits, levels, or points
Read full description

"an outstanding app that will help young readers...in a playful, encouraging environment." --- 5/5 "Best of the Best" Sandra Fleming, BestAppsForKids.com Bumping bubbles magically build words or invent your own to feed the silly creatures on Planet Lettra. Kids love this app for experimenting with word building and hearing what they've made. Imagine a set of letter blocks that your child can arrange any way they want and hear what they've built, blocks that guide your child in building the most important sight words for reading fluency and give him or her lots of exposure to important letter blends, blocks that even form words all by themselves. That's Planet Lettra. You can even go below the planet surface, into the belly of Lettra, to see the real words you've already fed to the Munchers, hear them read aloud individually or one after the other. Or rearrange the word bubbles to make silly sentence. Whatever your child or student's age or reading ability, this app has plenty to discover and play with: green and purple Munchers that love to eat words, silly costumes, musical patterns, creatures with other special powers and more. In classrooms and special ed settings, educators use Planet Lettra to scaffold student learning in spelling and phonics. Special pink bubbles can be assigned values in the Settings area and used to work on building words with specific parts (practice specific blends or rhymes). Features: • Play in English, French or Spanish • A short video tour of the planet introduces new travellers to Planet Lettra and guides them in playing with the bubbles and creatures • Planet Lettra recognizes over 100,000 words in each supported language. • Words important to reading fluency (about 1000) are formed more easily and more often. • The sound environment is musical, soothing and non-repetitive. • Experiment and play without stress: there are no time limits, no levels to complete, no points to accumulate, no in-app purchases -- Winner of a Children's Technology Review Editors Choice Award (2016) -- School Library Journal (slj.com): "Children will be delighted to discover that double tapping on a bubble triggers the narrator to pronounce it, even if it is an invented word. This app supports word recognition as “smart” letter bubbles (when users hold down a bubble) hint at combinations that lead to real terms. The real joy here is in playfully discovering what letters can do. -- Commonsensemedia.org: "The open-ended platform allows kids full freedom to explore and empowers them to find words all on their own." -- Educational App Store Certified, 4 stars, "This app is great for experimenting with word building and hearing what you have made. The app supports fantastic graphics and a unique playing experience."

Screenshots

READING MAGIC 24 screens
Planet Lettra4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Planet Lettra at none against READING MAGIC 2's 1. Planet Lettra also leads on update cadence (every 4 months vs every 19 months) and iOS requirement (8.1 vs 13.7). READING MAGIC 2's advantage is rating (4.8 vs 4.3). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. READING MAGIC 2 sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Planet Lettra asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

READING MAGIC 2 holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 21 and 41 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 81% of READING MAGIC 2's written reviews are positive against 83% of Planet Lettra's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

READING MAGIC 2 ships an update every 19 months, Planet Lettra every 4 months. Both last shipped on November 1, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
READING MAGIC 2 versus Planet Lettra: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterREADING MAGIC 2Planet Lettra
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (21 ratings) — better4.3 (41 ratings)
Positive reviews81.3% of reviews83.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2141 — better
Update frequencyEvery 19 monthsEvery 4 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS13.78.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size258 MB123 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPRESCHOOL UNIVERSITYGregory McDonald

Customer experience

READING MAGIC 2

All ratings21 ratings
Positive90.5%
Neutral9.5%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews32 reviews
Positive81.3%
Neutral6.3%
Negative12.5%

Planet Lettra

All ratings41 ratings
Positive82.9%
Neutral7.3%
Negative9.8%
Written reviews12 reviews
Positive83.3%
Neutral8.3%
Negative8.3%

In-app purchases

1 purchases

READING MAGIC 2

One-time1
  • Deluxe Upgrade$3.99
None

Planet Lettra

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is READING MAGIC 2 free?
READING MAGIC 2 is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Planet Lettra free?
Planet Lettra is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, READING MAGIC 2 or Planet Lettra?
READING MAGIC 2 is rated higher. READING MAGIC 2 averages 4.8 out of 5 from 21 ratings, while Planet Lettra averages 4.3 from 41 ratings.
Do READING MAGIC 2 or Planet Lettra have ads?
Neither READING MAGIC 2 nor Planet Lettra shows ads.
Which is updated more often, READING MAGIC 2 or Planet Lettra?
READING MAGIC 2 ships an update every 19 months, and Planet Lettra every 4 months. Most recently, READING MAGIC 2 was updated on November 1, 2026 and Planet Lettra on November 1, 2026.

Other comparisons