Comparison

Reading Raven vs Starfall Learn to Read

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

Head to head
About

Reading Raven

This app guides young children through a fun, adventure-filled journey to learn reading. It offers step-by-step lessons from pre-reading skills to reading full sentences, incorporating games and printing practice.

Highlights
  • Self-paced reading lessons
  • Eleven types of educational games
  • Customizable by age/reading level
  • Dynamic speed and tolerance adaptation
  • Sticker rewards
  • Free form letter and word writing
  • Voice instructions and feedback
Features
Read full description

Help your kids learn to read with their own personal reading-adventure guide! "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 "[Reading] Raven has what it takes to get kids on the road to reading and the developers have done it brilliantly..." -- Teachers With Apps "This is one of the best educational apps that I’ve ever seen. This app is so well built and is worth every penny!" -- iHeartThisApp "...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 ... has so many fun features for kids, they hardly know they're actually learning something. No, really, I kid you not. My daughter absolutely loves this app." -- Margaret Steck, mother of two News Flash: Reading Raven Vol 2, the next volume in the award-winning Reading Raven series, is also now available for download! ____________________ Reading Raven is an extremely fun and 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! - Eleven types of super fun games/activities that teach critical sub-skills! - 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 sounds - 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

Starfall Learn to Read

This free app offers engaging books, games, and movies to help children learn to read. It focuses on vowel sounds and spelling through interactive activities, songs, and movies, fostering a love for language and reading.

Highlights
  • Interactive reading activities
  • Engaging games and movies
  • Focus on vowel sounds and spelling
  • Songs and positive reinforcement
  • Suitable for emerging readers
  • Supports English language learners
Features
Read full description

Starfall® Learn to Read is the second step of Starfall’s Learn to Read phonics sequence, which teaches the foundational skills for learning to read. Step 1: ABCs Step 2: Learn to Read Step 3: It’s Fun to Read Step 4: I’m Reading! In Starfall Learn to Read, children explore early phonics in a sequential, stress-free environment. Each step of the learning journey comes to life with help from the Vowel Pals—delightful characters that add depth and personality to each vowel sound. Children develop their phonics skills through the use of CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, sight words, and vowel teams. Mastering the skills taught in Starfall Learn to Read helps children become confident, independent readers. Travel-ready. No internet connection required. Find Starfall Learn to Read, along with 700+ additional activities and counting across reading, math, music, and more in the Starfall app. The Starfall website and applications are program services of Starfall Education Foundation, a 501(c)(3) publicly supported nonprofit organization. Starfall® and Starfall.com® are registered trademarks in the US, the European Union, and various other countries. Copyright © 2002–2026 by Starfall Education. All rights reserved. Starfall apps are inclusively designed to support all children, including English Language Learners (ELLs). Starfall also provides an Enhanced Accessible Index for children with visual, hearing, or mobility impairments. For more information, please contact Customer Service at (+1) 303-417-6414.

Screenshots

Reading Raven1 screens
Starfall Learn to Read4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Starfall Learn to Read at Free against Reading Raven's $2.99. Starfall Learn to Read also leads on ratings volume (226 vs 64). Reading Raven's advantage is review sentiment (87% vs 75%) and iOS requirement (8.0 vs 15.0). On rating, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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

Starfall Learn to Read is free to download; Reading Raven costs $2.99 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 against 4.2 for Starfall Learn to Read. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 64 and 226 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 87% of Reading Raven's written reviews are positive against 75% of Starfall Learn to Read's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Reading Raven ships an update every 16 months, Starfall Learn to Read every 11 months. The most recent releases landed on September 28, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Reading Raven versus Starfall Learn to Read: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterReading RavenStarfall Learn to Read
Price$2.99Free — better
Rating4.3 (64 ratings) — better4.2 (226 ratings)
Positive reviews86.8% of reviews — better74.7% of reviews
Number of ratings64226 — better
Update frequencyEvery 16 monthsEvery 11 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS8.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size92 MB91 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperEarly Ascent, LLCStarfall Education Foundation

Customer experience

Reading Raven

All ratings64 ratings
Positive82.8%
Neutral1.6%
Negative15.6%
Written reviews76 reviews
Positive86.8%
Neutral5.3%
Negative7.9%

Starfall Learn to Read

All ratings226 ratings
Positive77.0%
Neutral7.1%
Negative15.9%
Written reviews75 reviews
Positive74.7%
Neutral1.3%
Negative24.0%

User reviews

Reading Raven

From 64 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Highly effective for learning to read
  • 🤩 Fun and engaging for children
  • 🚀 Well-thought-out progression
  • 💡 Innovative voice recording feature
  • 👍 Easy to navigate and understand

Room to improve

  • 💸 Charges money without authorization
  • 👎 No way to cancel subscriptions
  • 😞 Slow email support
  • 💰 Have to pay again for each device
  • 😠 Poor customer service

Starfall Learn to Read

From 226 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 📚 Excellent phonics and reading instruction method
  • 🎵 Engaging songs and catchy tunes that maintain interest
  • 🎨 Well-designed animations and interactive stories
  • 👶 Effective for children with learning difficulties (dyslexia, ADHD, special needs)
  • 💰 Free version available with substantial content

Room to improve

  • 🐛 App crashes and fails to load on some devices
  • ❌ Math games incompatible with certain iOS versions
  • 📱 Technical issues with black/green screens on launch
  • 🔄 Requires multiple restarts to function properly
  • 💳 Misleading pricing - paid version converted to free

Bugs and requests

Reading Raven

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Freezes iPhone during letter tracing
  • Background noise makes letter names hard to hear
  • No option to add more than 1 player profile (despite guide saying so)
  • In-app purchases removed (positive feedback, but implies previous issue)

Requested features

7 requests
  • Add multi-user profiles
  • Option to change manuscript style (D'Nealian)
  • More levels for paid app
  • Add more volumes/lessons
  • Dark mode option
Show 2 more
  • Ability to add more than 1 player profile
  • Add higher levels to introduce other combinations like ch and sh as well as long vowels

Starfall Learn to Read

Reported bugs

8 issues
  • App won't load beyond launch screen (black or green screen)
  • Math games incompatible with iPhone updates
  • Sound not playing in some instances
  • App requires deletion and reinstallation to function
  • Crashes on iOS 9.2.1 and older versions
Show 3 more
  • Glitches when pressing letter machine words
  • App needs to be opened twice each time to run
  • Compatibility issues with various iOS versions

Requested features

10 requests
  • Reward/star system for motivation and progress tracking
  • Lesson progression markers showing mastery of modules
  • Writing and spelling exercises to reinforce learning
  • More stories and content variety
  • UK English version option
Show 5 more
  • Settings to control word pronunciation features
  • More word-building exercises
  • Sight vocabulary games for common words
  • Additional phonics rules (ng, tch, ck, tion, sion)
  • Level progression system to track advancement

In-app purchases

None

Reading Raven

No in-app purchases

None

Starfall Learn to Read

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Reading Raven free?
Reading Raven costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Starfall Learn to Read free?
Starfall Learn to Read is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Reading Raven or Starfall Learn to Read?
Reading Raven is rated higher. Reading Raven averages 4.3 out of 5 from 64 ratings, while Starfall Learn to Read averages 4.2 from 226 ratings.
Do Reading Raven or Starfall Learn to Read have ads?
Neither Reading Raven nor Starfall Learn to Read shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Reading Raven or Starfall Learn to Read?
Reading Raven ships an update every 16 months, and Starfall Learn to Read every 11 months. Most recently, Reading Raven was updated on September 28, 2026 and Starfall Learn to Read on October 2, 2026.

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