Comparison

Reading Raven vs Monkey Word School Adventure

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
Currently charting
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

Monkey Word School Adventure

This app offers an engaging adventure for young children to learn early literacy skills. It covers letter recognition, phonics, spelling, and sight words through interactive games. Designed for ages 3-7, it adapts to the child's learning pace.

Highlights
  • Interactive learning games
  • Letter and word recognition
  • Phonics and spelling lessons
  • Sight word focus
  • Adaptive difficulty
  • Customizable settings
  • Reward system
Features
Read full description

Get ready for adventure...Monkey Word School Adventure! Join Milo and his jungle friends as they explore a fun-filled world of letters, sight words, phonics and spelling. Seamless game flow and behind-the-scenes performance adjustment allow your child to jump right in and begin playing and learning. For ages 3 to 7. Monkey Word School Adventure is an entertaining and captivating way to introduce your child to the fundamental concepts behind reading and writing. The lessons range from letter recognition and writing to spelling and phonics introducing word components such as consonant blends, digraphs, irregular vowels and more! There is also a special focus on sight words, the vital building blocks of reading and writing. === FEATURES === *6 interactive, carefully conceived, captivating games. *Letter and word recognition. *Introduction to digraphs, consonant blends, irregular vowels and other important concepts. *A focus on sight words helping your child learn these vital building blocks of reading and writing. *Uses THUP’s “Knack Technolgy ” system which automatically adjusts the difficulty of the games as your child plays. *Customizable Settings. Select which games your child plays and at what level allowing you to focus on a single task, such as learning sight words. *Designed for Kids: No confusing Menus or navigation. *Rewards! Kids earn frogs, butterflies, chameleons and more to put into their own customizable interactive terrarium. === KIDS LEARN WHILE THEY PLAY === *SPELLING STONE Milo needs help with his spelling. He can show you what it looks like, but do you know how to spell it? Use the magic gold letters to solve the puzzle! * SIGHT BIRDS Milo is looking for a special gems and the sight birds have them! Help him collect as many as you can before the time runs out! Features letter recognition and sight words. *LETTER WRITING Learn to write uppercase and lowercase letters by carving them in the ancient stone writing wall. *PHONICS BRIDGE Oh no the bridge is out and two little chinchillas are going to miss their play date! Help them get together by fixing the bridge using the engineering power of phonics! *WORD WALL Using an ancient map Milo has stumbled upon a mysterious puzzle. Help him solve it by finding all the words on the map! *RHYMING MAZE Help a greedy little Chinchilla find his treasure by drawing a path using words that rhyme! *TERRARIUM Populate and decorate your own interactive terrarium! Choose from tons of plants, frogs, butterflies and dragonflies to create your own uniques worlds. Email us: support@thup.com Like us: http://www.facebook.com/THUPgames Follow us: http://twitter.com/THUPGames

Screenshots

Reading Raven1 screens
Monkey Word School Adventure4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Monkey Word School Adventure at 4.6 against Reading Raven's 4.3. Monkey Word School Adventure also leads on update cadence (every 4 months vs every 16 months) and price ($1.99 vs $2.99). Reading Raven's advantage is chart position (#171 vs unranked) and iOS requirement (8.0 vs 15.0). On review sentiment, ratings volume, 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

Reading Raven costs $2.99 and Monkey Word School Adventure $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Monkey Word School Adventure holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 65 and 26 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 87% of Reading Raven's written reviews are positive against 81% of Monkey Word School Adventure's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Reading Raven ships an update every 16 months, Monkey Word School Adventure every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 4, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Reading Raven versus Monkey Word School Adventure: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterReading RavenMonkey Word School Adventure
Price$2.99$1.99 — better
Rating4.3 (65 ratings)4.6 (26 ratings) — better
Positive reviews86.8% of reviews — better81.3% of reviews
Number of ratings65 — better26
Update frequencyEvery 16 monthsEvery 4 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
Best chart rank#171 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS8.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size92 MB366 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperEarly Ascent, LLCTHUP Games

Customer experience

Reading Raven

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

Monkey Word School Adventure

All ratings26 ratings
Positive88.5%
Neutral0.0%
Negative11.5%
Written reviews80 reviews
Positive81.3%
Neutral5.0%
Negative13.8%

User reviews

Reading Raven

From 65 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

Monkey Word School Adventure

From 26 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Great for learning letters/reading
  • 👍 Engaging and fun for kids
  • 👍 Good for short attention spans
  • 👍 Positive reinforcement
  • 👍 Multiple user profiles

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Trace the letter portion broken/buggy
  • 🐛 Latest update issues
  • 🐛 No sound in latest update
  • 🐛 Hint button broken (always on)
  • 🐛 Too advanced for under 5s (American accent)

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

Monkey Word School Adventure

Reported bugs

14 issues
  • Trace the letter portion is completely broken and buggy
  • Latest update issues: random completion of writing, no sound
  • Hint button appears to be broken, always on
  • App crashes and loses terrarium progress
  • App won't open/respond
Show 9 more
  • Cannot add player or hit support
  • No sound on iPad 2/iPad 3
  • Sound option is greyed out
  • Hints popup too quickly
  • Long loads between activities
  • The writing of some letters in the sand is wrong
  • Phonetic pronunciation of some letters is odd
  • Not responding
  • Hasn't worked since last iOS update

Requested features

29 requests
  • Update trace the letter portion
  • Fix latest update issues
  • Fix no sound issue
  • Fix hint button always on
  • Add difficulty settings
Show 24 more
  • Fix bundle pricing
  • Fix losing terrarium progress
  • Increase player spaces
  • Improve letter tracing fluidity
  • Fix sound issues on specific iPads
  • Add more challenging levels
  • Add more parental control options (hints, rewards)
  • Add more interesting terrarium prizes
  • Add option for upper or lower case letters only
  • Add phonetic pronunciation only option
  • Add picture rhyme option
  • Add section for matching beginning sounds
  • Add more content
  • Fix monkey screen pace
  • Allow turning off hints
  • Improve hint functionality (less intrusive)
  • Add more player spaces (up to 20 ideal)
  • Make tracing of letters more like handwriting
  • Fix UK reading scheme issue
  • Sound out letters instead of saying names
  • Fix odd phonetic pronunciation
  • Fix incorrect letter writing
  • Adjust praise system (less generic)
  • Fix long loads between activities

In-app purchases

None

Reading Raven

No in-app purchases

None

Monkey Word School Adventure

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Reading Raven free?
Reading Raven costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Monkey Word School Adventure free?
Monkey Word School Adventure costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Reading Raven or Monkey Word School Adventure?
Monkey Word School Adventure is rated higher. Reading Raven averages 4.3 out of 5 from 65 ratings, while Monkey Word School Adventure averages 4.6 from 26 ratings.
Do Reading Raven or Monkey Word School Adventure have ads?
Neither Reading Raven nor Monkey Word School Adventure shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Reading Raven or Monkey Word School Adventure?
Reading Raven ships an update every 16 months, and Monkey Word School Adventure every 4 months. Most recently, Reading Raven was updated on November 1, 2026 and Monkey Word School Adventure on November 4, 2026.

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