Writing Wizard vs BDI
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Writing Wizard
This app helps children learn to trace letters, numbers, and words with a fun, motivating system. It offers customizable tracing, interactive games, and progress reports for parents and educators.
- Customizable tracing practice
- Interactive games and rewards
- Letter names and phonics
- Create custom word lists
- Progress reports
- Printable worksheets
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"Fantastic, customizable tracing practice with fun rewards." 5 Stars - Common Sense Media 470,000+ units sold (including 260,000 to schools) ! Writing Wizard is designed to help every child learn how to trace letters, numbers, and words through a fun system carefully designed to maintain motivation. • Show and enforce how to trace letters correctly • 16 Fonts available (including 3 most popular USA fonts) • Fun tracing using 50+ animated stickers, sound effects and interactive games that animate letters at the end of tracing • Letter names and phonics • Uppercase & lowercase letters, numbers and words • Ability to create your own word lists (and record audio for each word) • Fully customizable to suit every child’s needs (letter size, difficulty,...) • Check progress thanks to reports that display what the child has traced • Shapes tracing activity for toddlers • Create PDF Worksheets and print them to help your child to write on paper • Use Apple pencil to write at very small size _______ ACCOLADES • "Writing Wizard is the most complete and intelligent letter tracing app we’ve seen"" AppoLearning.com • "This brand-new app should be the go-to for every parent, teacher and therapist to work on handwriting" - TOP PICKS - 5 stars - SmartAppsForKids.com • "Writing Wizard by L’Escapadou is everything a parent wants in a handwriting app, and more." 5/5 - kids-app-reviews.com • "L’Escapadou has made handwriting fun." AppyMall.com 5/5 • Listed in "20 best educational iPhone and iPad apps for kids of 2013" - appsplayground.com • Editor's Choice Award for Excellence in Design - Children's Technology Review _______ PERFECT FOR KIDS Kids want to have fun, and Writing Wizard offers a lot of fun to keep them motivated in the learning process ! • They can trace using 50+ animated stickers and sound effects • Once tracing is complete, they can interact with them on 4 games that animate letters • They can trace any word - like their name - and record their voice for each word • They can collect stars in 5-Stars play mode _______ PERFECT FOR PARENTS & TEACHERS • Ability to create your own word lists (and record audio for each word) • Detailed reports provide information on what kids have done, including the ability to replay and export the tracings to view kids' progress • Share word lists via iCloud drive or other cloud providers, adhoc network, or email • Multiple parameters to customize the app according to the child’s current education level (e.g. letter size, difficulty, show/hide model, allow to stop between key points, etc.) • 3 most popular fonts in the US (ZB, DN & HWT) and 13 international fonts (UK, Scandinavia,Australia, germany, France) • Upper and lower case letters, numbers (and word lists) • Letter names and phonics (which can be customized) • A customizable 5-Stars play mode prompting the child to trace a letter or a word 5 times using different parameters (each step is more challenging) • Create an unlimited number of users • Many settings to customize the app (sound, game time limit, black background,...) • In the A-Z section, special graphics available to match letters (e.g. ant graphic for A/a) _______ Note that a free to try version is available (search for "Writing Wizard -Starter" on the App Store) _______ Privacy Policy KNOW WHAT'S INSIDE As a Moms with Apps member, we follow the "Know what's inside" best practices for kids’ apps L’Escapadou takes children’s privacy seriously. We believe you should not have to worry about your kids being tracked by apps or websites. This app: • Does not collect any user information (we do not use data collection tools) • Does not contain in-app purchases • External Links: Protected parent sections are available where you can send us a mail and check out our others apps. Before accessing a parent section, an addition must be solved so that young kids cannot access it. *
BDI
This application assists in administering clinical assessments for child development. It offers guided digital support for scoring, timers, and reporting, functioning both online and offline. Users can manage student data and sync assessments for web-based access.
- Online and offline assessment administration
- Guided digital scoring assistance
- Basal and ceiling indicators
- Built-in timers
- Modular reporting options
- Student data management
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BDI-3 Mobile Data Solution (MDS) is an online and offline application to assist with the administration of the Battelle® Developmental Inventory 3rd Edition™ suite of products. The Battelle Developmental Complete, BDI-3 Screening Test, and the Battelle Early Academic Survey are clinical assessments that may be assessed through the BDI-3 MDS. The application provides guided digital assistance with the administration of each of the three products. The guided digital assistance includes basal and ceiling indicators, tallied scoring, built in timers, scoring rubrics, and modular reporting options. Within the application the user will be able to add students, administer all three types of BDI-3 assessments, and run reports both online and offline. It also allows the user to sync mobile record forms that they can then access on the riversidescore.com website.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: BDI at Free against Writing Wizard's $13.99. BDI also leads on update cadence (every 2 months vs every 4 months) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.6). Writing Wizard's advantage is rating (4.3 vs 2.3) and ratings volume (3.3K vs 6). On 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
BDI is free to download; Writing Wizard costs $13.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Writing Wizard holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 2.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Writing Wizard has 3.3K ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Writing Wizard ships an update every 4 months, BDI every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and August 22, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Writing Wizard | BDI |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $13.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (3.3K ratings) — better | 2.3 (6 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 90.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 3.3K — better | 6 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 69 MB | 208 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Pierre Abel | RiversideInsights |
Customer experience
Writing Wizard
BDI
Bugs and requests
Writing Wizard
Reported bugs
2 issues- Incorrect letter formation for some characters
- Inconsistent performance on older devices
Requested features
6 requests- Add more font options, including cursive and UK-specific styles
- Improve parental control accessibility
- Integrate Apple Pencil support
- Allow easier clearing of tracing history
- Expand character support (e.g., Latin Extended, Cyrillic, Arabic)
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- Add a free-form writing mode or blank canvas
BDI
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Writing Wizard
No in-app purchases
BDI
No in-app purchases









