First Sight Words Professional vs Starfall Pumpkin
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
First Sight Words Professional
This app helps children develop essential reading skills by teaching over 300 common English sight words. It uses engaging visuals and sounds, along with customizable word lists, to support learning from pre-K through 3rd grade.
- Teaches over 300 Dolch List sight words
- MINSPEAK® icons for clear visual learning
- Customizable word and category management
- Supports pre-K through 3rd grade vocabulary
- Develops fine motor control and letter recognition
- Phonics or letter name options
- Choice of font styles and capitalization
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Help your kids become a great readers with First Sight Words Professional. With a focus on the core vocabulary your children will need throughout their lives, First Sight Words Professional includes over 300 of the most common words in the English language. Based on the Dolch Word List, this app uses the same child-friendly design and simple interface that made First Words one of the all-time best selling educational apps for iOS. New features make it the ideal choice for use in the classroom, the car, or on the couch: * With over 300 words, First Sight Words Professional includes five levels of core vocabulary to take your child from pre-k through 3rd grade, plus a list of nearly 100 common nouns. * Each sight word is paired with a MINSPEAK® icon. Designed by linguists, speech pathologists, and information technology experts, MINSPEAK icons provide clear graphics for the full core vocabulary. * Word management lets you choose which sight words to include in each word list. Focus on shorter words, longer words, or words with particular letter combinations. Hide words that a child finds particularly distracting and include words you'd like the child to focus on. * Category management lets you control which lists of words are visible to children using the app. You can focus on younger vocabulary, older vocabulary, or provide the full range of words. First Sight Words Professional uses uses the same intuitive interface that has made FirstWords so popular with preschoolers, kindergartners, and kids with special needs. Your child will giggle with delight at the beautifully drawn pictures and matching entertaining sounds, all the while building an excellent foundation for early language and reading fluency. First Sight Words Professional helps kids develop: * Fine Motor Control * Letter Recognition * Phonemic Awareness * Word Recognition * Reading Fluency First Sight Words Professional includes a large number options: * Phonics or Letter Names * Uppercase, Lowercase, or Capitalized Words * Spell Words Slowly or Quickly * Serif or Sans-Serif font Here's what educators and reviewers have said about earlier versions FirstWords: “FirstWords is an app that teaches letters and words in fun and interactive way. Very easy to use these apps will help support your little ones learning with great illustrations and bright colors. Each app supports kids learning and encourages kids to explore and discover by revealing, rewarding and teaching.” -- Fun Educational Apps “Excellent - As a teacher, I love this game! Just what technology was meant to do!” -- iTunes Review “This app has great settings that let you control the level of difficulty for the child – either with lots of hints or almost none at all. The letters slide nicely into each word and when completed the child is rewarded by having the pictured animal enlarge and animate briefly.” --Carisa Kluver at Digital Stortyime “FirstWords:Deluxe is a very straightforward word-building game. Words are either said letter by letter as they are dragged into the appropriate gray boxes or, if chosen in the settings, a smaller set of words can be sounded out with phonics. This makes this game a treat for both pre-readers and early spellers.” --Common Sense Media "FirstWords is a great app -- as I said at the time, 'Leo loves First Words because it's fun and easy. I love it because he's learning to spell words, and the interface makes that learning error-free.'" ---Shannon Des Roches Rosa at Squidalicious
Starfall Pumpkin
Design unique pumpkin faces and weigh them to discover the lightest and heaviest. Save your creations and award blue ribbons to your favorites. This app is ideal for young learners developing reading and math skills.
- Pumpkin face design
- Pumpkin weighing (kg/lbs)
- Identify lightest/heaviest
- Save pumpkin creations
- Award blue ribbons
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Visit the Pumpkin Patch, choose a pumpkin and design a face. Weigh pumpkins in kilograms or pounds and discover which is the lightest and which is heaviest. Collect your pumpkin creations and give your favorite the blue ribbon! This app is excellent for emerging readers and young mathematicians.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Starfall Pumpkin at $0.99 against First Sight Words Professional's $9.99. Starfall Pumpkin also leads on review sentiment (60% vs 46%). First Sight Words Professional's advantage is rating (4.3 vs 3.9). On ratings volume, 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
First Sight Words Professional costs $9.99 and Starfall Pumpkin $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
First Sight Words Professional holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 20 and 13 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 46% of First Sight Words Professional's written reviews are positive against 60% of Starfall Pumpkin's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
First Sight Words Professional ships an update every 21 months, Starfall Pumpkin every 11 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | First Sight Words Professional | Starfall Pumpkin |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | $0.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (20 ratings) — better | 3.9 (13 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 46.2% of reviews | 60.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 20 — better | 13 |
| Update frequency | Every 21 months | Every 11 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.2 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 71 MB | 26 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Learning Touch LLC | Starfall Education Foundation |
Customer experience
First Sight Words Professional
Starfall Pumpkin
In-app purchases
First Sight Words Professional
No in-app purchases
Starfall Pumpkin
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is First Sight Words Professional free?
Is Starfall Pumpkin free?
Which has better reviews, First Sight Words Professional or Starfall Pumpkin?
Do First Sight Words Professional or Starfall Pumpkin have ads?
Which is updated more often, First Sight Words Professional or Starfall Pumpkin?
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