Comparison

Reading Raven HD vs Writing Wizard

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

Head to head
About

Reading Raven HD

This app guides children on a reading adventure, offering step-by-step lessons from pre-reading to sentence construction. It features engaging games, customizable profiles, and rewards to build a strong reading foundation.

Highlights
  • Self-paced reading lessons
  • 11 types of educational games
  • Multiple child profiles
  • Customizable by age/level
  • Sticker rewards
  • Free form writing practice
  • Hand-illustrated artwork
Features
Read full description

Help your children learn to read with their own personal reading adventure guide! ▸ Voted Most Awesome Kids App of 2012 by over 100,000 Red Tricycle readers ▸ A Parents' Choice Award Winner ▸ Apple Staff Favorite and What's Hot in Education ▸ Rated Among Best Five iPad Apps to Teach Your Kid How to Read by Huffington Post ▸ Voted Among 12 Best Children’s Educational iPad Apps Released In 2012 by Teachers with Apps "Reading Raven has one of the strongest educational and design foundations we have seen." -- Kindertown "Finally – a seriously educational app that leads children from early phonological awareness and phonics right up to reading full sentences while integrating printing skills and teaching through games. Reading Raven for iPad is an incredible learn-to-read app, easily the best I’ve encountered to date in the App Store. I’m in love." -- Apps For Homeschooling "If you are looking for a great iPad program for children’s early, emerging skills, this is the one I would recommend." -- Dr. Richard Selznick, Director of Cooper Learning Center and author of The Shut-Down Learner "I can see [Kaylee] really learning and growing with this. Already she's starting to learn more and faster than she ever has before." -- Rita Webb, mother of two ____________________ Reading Raven is an extremely engaging learn-to-read educational game that provides step-by-step reading lessons designed to help young children build a solid foundation for reading. FEATURES: - Self-paced lessons take kids all the way from pre-reading to reading sentences! - 11 types of super fun games/activities that teach critical sub-skills! - Configure profiles for multiple children! - Fully customizable by age or reading level! - Speed and tolerance dynamically adapt to motor control ability! - Sticker rewards that reinforce what was learned! - No pressure tactics! - Extremely effective voice instructions and feedback! - Free form letter and word writing! - Children can pause and save their progress anytime! - Beautiful hand-illustrated artwork! - No third party advertising! - No external links to social network sites! With the Reading Raven companion guiding them along, children will go on delightful fun-filled adventures where they will encounter fly eating frogs, caterpillars that turn into butterflies, circus acrobats, ball balancing seals, underwater sea creatures, snow monsters, flying penguins, space robots, rhyming rockets, and much more! Reading Raven includes the following progression of self-paced educational activities: Ages 3 and Up - Letter matching - Letter tracing - Letter recognition - Word matching Ages 4 and Up - Vocabulary - Word beginnings - Word building (spelling) - Word spotting Ages 5 and Up - Reading aloud using voice recording - Word tracing - Word groups (rhyming and beginning sounds) Reading Raven includes five extensive lessons, with hundreds of individual activities in total. Parents and teachers will find the multi-sensory learning games to be a great complement to traditional classroom and home-based reading instruction. Recommended Ages: 3-7 Categories: Reading, Phonics, Letters, Spelling, Writing, Vocabulary, Early Learning, Special Needs Build your child's reading confidence with Reading Raven and watch their learning take flight. Happy Reading Adventures! ____________________ MORE INFO, FEEDBACK & SUPPORT Learn more about the product and our team: http://www.readingraven.com/ Like us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/readingraven Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/readingraven If you have feedback or suggestions, please email us at feedback@earlyascent.com. We’d love to hear from you! ____________________ PRIVACY We have kids too and take the privacy of you and your children seriously. This product does not collect any personally identifiable information by default.

About

Writing Wizard

This app helps children learn to trace letters, numbers, and words with a fun, motivating system. It offers customizable tracing, interactive games, and progress reports for parents and educators.

Highlights
  • Customizable tracing practice
  • Interactive games and rewards
  • Letter names and phonics
  • Create custom word lists
  • Progress reports
  • Printable worksheets
Features
Read full description

"Fantastic, customizable tracing practice with fun rewards." 5 Stars - Common Sense Media 470,000+ units sold (including 260,000 to schools) ! Writing Wizard is designed to help every child learn how to trace letters, numbers, and words through a fun system carefully designed to maintain motivation. • Show and enforce how to trace letters correctly • 16 Fonts available (including 3 most popular USA fonts) • Fun tracing using 50+ animated stickers, sound effects and interactive games that animate letters at the end of tracing • Letter names and phonics • Uppercase & lowercase letters, numbers and words • Ability to create your own word lists (and record audio for each word) • Fully customizable to suit every child’s needs (letter size, difficulty,...) • Check progress thanks to reports that display what the child has traced • Shapes tracing activity for toddlers • Create PDF Worksheets and print them to help your child to write on paper • Use Apple pencil to write at very small size _______ ACCOLADES • "Writing Wizard is the most complete and intelligent letter tracing app we’ve seen"" AppoLearning.com • "This brand-new app should be the go-to for every parent, teacher and therapist to work on handwriting" - TOP PICKS - 5 stars - SmartAppsForKids.com • "Writing Wizard by L’Escapadou is everything a parent wants in a handwriting app, and more." 5/5 - kids-app-reviews.com • "L’Escapadou has made handwriting fun." AppyMall.com 5/5 • Listed in "20 best educational iPhone and iPad apps for kids of 2013" - appsplayground.com • Editor's Choice Award for Excellence in Design - Children's Technology Review _______ PERFECT FOR KIDS Kids want to have fun, and Writing Wizard offers a lot of fun to keep them motivated in the learning process ! • They can trace using 50+ animated stickers and sound effects • Once tracing is complete, they can interact with them on 4 games that animate letters • They can trace any word - like their name - and record their voice for each word • They can collect stars in 5-Stars play mode _______ PERFECT FOR PARENTS & TEACHERS • Ability to create your own word lists (and record audio for each word) • Detailed reports provide information on what kids have done, including the ability to replay and export the tracings to view kids' progress • Share word lists via iCloud drive or other cloud providers, adhoc network, or email • Multiple parameters to customize the app according to the child’s current education level (e.g. letter size, difficulty, show/hide model, allow to stop between key points, etc.) • 3 most popular fonts in the US (ZB, DN & HWT) and 13 international fonts (UK, Scandinavia,Australia, germany, France) • Upper and lower case letters, numbers (and word lists) • Letter names and phonics (which can be customized) • A customizable 5-Stars play mode prompting the child to trace a letter or a word 5 times using different parameters (each step is more challenging) • Create an unlimited number of users • Many settings to customize the app (sound, game time limit, black background,...) • In the A-Z section, special graphics available to match letters (e.g. ant graphic for A/a) _______ Note that a free to try version is available (search for "Writing Wizard -Starter" on the App Store) _______ Privacy Policy KNOW WHAT'S INSIDE As a Moms with Apps member, we follow the "Know what's inside" best practices for kids’ apps L’Escapadou takes children’s privacy seriously. We believe you should not have to worry about your kids being tracked by apps or websites. This app: • Does not collect any user information (we do not use data collection tools) • Does not contain in-app purchases • External Links: Protected parent sections are available where you can send us a mail and check out our others apps. Before accessing a parent section, an addition must be solved so that young kids cannot access it. *

Screenshots

Writing Wizard4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Reading Raven HD at $3.99 against Writing Wizard's $13.99. Reading Raven HD also leads on iOS requirement (8.0 vs 15.6). Writing Wizard's advantage is ratings volume (3.3K vs 46) and device support (3 vs 1). On rating, review sentiment, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Reading Raven HD costs $3.99 and Writing Wizard $13.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.3 for Reading Raven HD against 4.3 for Writing Wizard. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Writing Wizard has 3.3K ratings behind it against 46, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 89% and 90% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Reading Raven HD ships an update every 7 months, Writing Wizard every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Reading Raven HD versus Writing Wizard: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterReading Raven HDWriting Wizard
Price$3.99 — better$13.99
Rating4.3 (46 ratings)4.3 (3.3K ratings) — better
Positive reviews89.3% of reviews89.7% of reviews — better
Number of ratings463.3K — better
Update frequencyEvery 7 monthsEvery 4 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidPaid
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS8.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size146 MB69 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperEarly Ascent, LLCPierre Abel

Customer experience

Reading Raven HD

All ratings44 ratings
Positive79.5%
Neutral6.8%
Negative13.6%
Written reviews140 reviews
Positive89.3%
Neutral2.9%
Negative7.9%

Writing Wizard

All ratings3,340 ratings
Positive81.8%
Neutral9.5%
Negative8.7%
Written reviews155 reviews
Positive89.7%
Neutral2.6%
Negative7.7%

User reviews

Reading Raven HD

From 46 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👩🏼‍🎓 Helps with learning
  • 🎓 Great for early readers
  • 👍 Engaging and fun
  • 🎨 Beautiful graphics
  • 🔊 Good audio quality

Room to improve

  • 🐛 App crashes or freezes
  • 🔊 American accent not suitable for some users
  • 🤖 Monotonous or boring at times
  • 🔒 No multi-user support
  • 🔢 Limited number of levels/lessons

Writing Wizard

From 3.3K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Customizable word lists and recording
  • 🎨 Engaging graphics and animations
  • 🏫 Great for teaching handwriting and spelling
  • 🔒 No ads or in-app purchases
  • 🎓 Helpful for children with special needs

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional crashes or freezing
  • 🔤 Limited font options, especially for UK users
  • 🔒 Difficulty accessing parental controls
  • 🖋️ Apple Pencil not supported
  • 🔄 Difficulty clearing tracing history

Bugs and requests

Reading Raven HD

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • App crashes after iOS 8 update
  • Microphone not working after iOS 7 update
  • Incorrect pronunciations or sounds for some letters
  • Settings menu not working properly

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more levels and lessons
  • Provide option for British/UK English accent
  • Implement multi-user support
  • Add more variety to the activities
  • Improve voice recording functionality

Writing Wizard

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Incorrect letter formation for some characters
  • Inconsistent performance on older devices

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add more font options, including cursive and UK-specific styles
  • Improve parental control accessibility
  • Integrate Apple Pencil support
  • Allow easier clearing of tracing history
  • Expand character support (e.g., Latin Extended, Cyrillic, Arabic)
Show 1 more
  • Add a free-form writing mode or blank canvas

In-app purchases

None

Reading Raven HD

No in-app purchases

None

Writing Wizard

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Reading Raven HD free?
Reading Raven HD costs $3.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Writing Wizard free?
Writing Wizard costs $13.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Reading Raven HD or Writing Wizard?
Writing Wizard is rated higher. Reading Raven HD averages 4.3 out of 5 from 46 ratings, while Writing Wizard averages 4.3 from 3.3K ratings.
Do Reading Raven HD or Writing Wizard have ads?
Neither Reading Raven HD nor Writing Wizard shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Reading Raven HD or Writing Wizard?
Reading Raven HD ships an update every 7 months, and Writing Wizard every 4 months. Most recently, Reading Raven HD was updated on November 1, 2026 and Writing Wizard on November 6, 2026.

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