Picture Packets vs CineLingo
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Picture Packets
This app is part of a comprehensive reading and writing curriculum designed for beginning readers or those who have struggled with literacy. It focuses on developing the ability to blend sounds and remember words to read entire phrases, building upon foundational phonetic skills.
- Part of a 14-app reading curriculum
- Focuses on blending sounds to form phrases
- Develops memory for blended words
- Builds upon phonetic skills
- 38 Picture Packets pages
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Center for Innovation in Education Picture Packets - Phrases Dekodiphukan Description The eighth of the fourteen apps that comprise the Baratta-Lorton Reading Program. The Reading Program is a reading and writing curriculum for beginning readers and any child who has already experienced difficulty in learning to read. 99% unique – 100% effective - 100% free Background for the fourteen apps The Baratta-Lorton Reading Program also known as Dekodiphukan (pronounced decode if you can) was developed by the Center for Innovation in Education whose many other offerings include Mathematics Their Way, the first non-traditional math curriculum adopted in by the State of California. Dekodiphukan has been in use in classrooms across the United States and Canada since 1985. The Program has been used to teach thousands of children to read and to write regardless of background or supposed lack of reading readiness. To date, no child using the program in a classroom setting has ever failed to learn to read or to write. This Dekodiphukan reading and writing curriculum is now a series of fourteen apps plus a parent-guide for the iPad that, within a period of six months to a year (or occasionally a bit longer for some special needs children), will enable every child using it to read and to write. Reading with enjoyment. Writing creatively. Dekodiphukan is a full fledged curriculum. It is a set of specific learning activities, not a set of games. The curriculum’s fourteen apps are all free with no ads - popup or otherwise - included. While the apps may be downloaded all at once and stored in a folder on the iPad, no more than two or three of the apps are used at any one time by the child. Picture Packets - Phrases The eighth of the Fourteen Apps There are 38 Picture Packets pages. The prerequisites for beginning Phrase Picture Packets are knowing all of the sounds and being able to blend two and three sound words without any audio hints. The difficulty for the child who is learning to blend two and three sound words is in hearing the word formed by the sounds. At the phrase level the child already knows how to blend sounds together to form words. The challenge for the child now is remembering each of the words already blended so that by the time he or she has finished blending the last word, the child still remembers the earlier words blended. The phrase level gives practice in this remembering. Picture Packets - Phrases Prerequisites - knowing all of the sounds and being able to read two and three sound words The skill of reading individual words is expanded to include reading whole phrases
CineLingo
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CineLingo teaches you to understand a spoken language by watching a story. Each day you watch a short scene from an original film. Before the scene, CineLingo teaches you the words in it, with pictures and native-speaker audio. No translation, no grammar drills. Then you watch, and you understand the line when it comes. Most apps train your reading. CineLingo trains your ear. HOW IT WORKS • See the word, hear the word: every word comes with an image and spoken audio, so you learn the meaning directly, not through English. • Hear it in the scene: the words you just learned come back in real dialogue at natural speed. • Train your ear: quizzes use words that sound alike (hombre / hambre) so you learn to hear the difference. • Keep it: spaced repetition brings each word back just before you would forget it. • Ten minutes a day: one episode, one lesson, every day. TARGET LANGUAGES • Latin American Spanish • European Portuguese, as spoken in Lisbon, which few apps teach BUILT ON COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT CineLingo is built on comprehensible input: you acquire a language by understanding messages just above your level. Use it alongside the app you already have, or on its own. Start with Day 1. For Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Picture Packets at none against CineLingo's 4. Picture Packets also leads on ads (none vs shown) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 18.0). CineLingo's advantage is update cadence (every 10 days vs every 69 months). On rating, ratings volume and device support 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
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Picture Packets against 5.0 for CineLingo. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively.
Picture Packets ships an update every 69 months, CineLingo every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Picture Packets | CineLingo |
|---|---|---|
| Price | — | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 69 months | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 27 MB | 73 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Bob Baratta-Lorton | TrackTrack.it, LLC |
Customer experience
Picture Packets
CineLingo
In-app purchases
Picture Packets
No in-app purchases
CineLingo
- Premium Weekly$3.007 Days
- Premium Monthly$9.001 Month
- Premium Yearly$79.001 Year
- Portugal Travel Pack$9.99









