Starfall Learn to Read vs Planet Lettra
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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.
Planet Lettra
This app provides a playful environment for children to experiment with building words. It uses interactive letter bubbles to help young learners develop reading fluency and phonics skills in a stress-free, musical setting.
- Interactive letter bubbles for word creation
- Supports English, French, and Spanish
- Recognizes over 100,000 words per language
- Focuses on sight words and letter blends
- Musical and soothing sound environment
- No time limits, levels, or points
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"an outstanding app that will help young readers...in a playful, encouraging environment." --- 5/5 "Best of the Best" Sandra Fleming, BestAppsForKids.com Bumping bubbles magically build words or invent your own to feed the silly creatures on Planet Lettra. Kids love this app for experimenting with word building and hearing what they've made. Imagine a set of letter blocks that your child can arrange any way they want and hear what they've built, blocks that guide your child in building the most important sight words for reading fluency and give him or her lots of exposure to important letter blends, blocks that even form words all by themselves. That's Planet Lettra. You can even go below the planet surface, into the belly of Lettra, to see the real words you've already fed to the Munchers, hear them read aloud individually or one after the other. Or rearrange the word bubbles to make silly sentence. Whatever your child or student's age or reading ability, this app has plenty to discover and play with: green and purple Munchers that love to eat words, silly costumes, musical patterns, creatures with other special powers and more. In classrooms and special ed settings, educators use Planet Lettra to scaffold student learning in spelling and phonics. Special pink bubbles can be assigned values in the Settings area and used to work on building words with specific parts (practice specific blends or rhymes). Features: • Play in English, French or Spanish • A short video tour of the planet introduces new travellers to Planet Lettra and guides them in playing with the bubbles and creatures • Planet Lettra recognizes over 100,000 words in each supported language. • Words important to reading fluency (about 1000) are formed more easily and more often. • The sound environment is musical, soothing and non-repetitive. • Experiment and play without stress: there are no time limits, no levels to complete, no points to accumulate, no in-app purchases -- Winner of a Children's Technology Review Editors Choice Award (2016) -- School Library Journal (slj.com): "Children will be delighted to discover that double tapping on a bubble triggers the narrator to pronounce it, even if it is an invented word. This app supports word recognition as “smart” letter bubbles (when users hold down a bubble) hint at combinations that lead to real terms. The real joy here is in playfully discovering what letters can do. -- Commonsensemedia.org: "The open-ended platform allows kids full freedom to explore and empowers them to find words all on their own." -- Educational App Store Certified, 4 stars, "This app is great for experimenting with word building and hearing what you have made. The app supports fantastic graphics and a unique playing experience."
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Planet Lettra at every 4 months against Starfall Learn to Read's every 9 months. Planet Lettra also leads on review sentiment (83% vs 75%) and iOS requirement (8.1 vs 15.0). Starfall Learn to Read's advantage is ratings volume (228 vs 41). On price, rating, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.2 for Starfall Learn to Read against 4.3 for Planet Lettra. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Starfall Learn to Read has 228 ratings behind it against 41, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 75% of Starfall Learn to Read's written reviews are positive against 83% of Planet Lettra's.
Starfall Learn to Read ships an update every 9 months, Planet Lettra every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Starfall Learn to Read | Planet Lettra |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.2 (228 ratings) | 4.3 (41 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 74.7% of reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 228 — better | 41 |
| Update frequency | Every 9 months | Every 4 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 8.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 91 MB | 123 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Starfall Education Foundation | Gregory McDonald |
Customer experience
Starfall Learn to Read
Planet Lettra
Bugs and requests
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
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- 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
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- 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
Planet Lettra
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Starfall Learn to Read
No in-app purchases
Planet Lettra
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Starfall Learn to Read free?
Is Planet Lettra free?
Which has better reviews, Starfall Learn to Read or Planet Lettra?
Do Starfall Learn to Read or Planet Lettra have ads?
Which is updated more often, Starfall Learn to Read or Planet Lettra?
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