Touch and Write Phonics vs Dexteria Dots
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Touch and Write Phonics
This app helps children learn phonics through interactive writing exercises. It offers various fun writing textures and papers, allowing kids to practice writing whole words. Parents and teachers can track progress and create custom practice lists.
- Interactive writing practice for phonics
- Multiple fun writing textures and papers
- Learn vowels, blends, and digraphs
- Progress tracking for parents and teachers
- Customizable practice lists
- Reward system for completed words
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**Best App Ever Award - Honorable Mention!** "Touch and Write Phonics" is a fun way for children to practice vowels, blends, digraphs and trigraphs - as they write with shaving cream, ketchup and more! "Touch and Write Phonics" allows parents and teachers to create individualized practice lists, and it allows parents and teachers to track children's progress! ▫▫ How to Play ▫▫ Children choose a phonics area to practice by tapping the "Vowels," "Blends" or "Digraphs" button. Children will have the opportunity to watch animations that teach about short vowels, long vowels, blends and digraphs or to practice writing words with short vowels, long vowels (with special attention to "silent e"), starting and ending blends, digraphs and trigraphs. Fun writing textures keep children engaged! Shaving cream is fun to write with, but children may switch between 18 different writing textures (along with sound effects!) Children may write with shaving cream, ketchup, lime gelatin, chocolate frosting, syrup, pudding, jelly, cookie dough, and much more! Children may also choose from 35 different writing papers - including zebra, tiger, giraffe, brick, chalk board, waffle, hieroglyphics, and much more! There are also lined papers that match school writing papers and dark papers for children who are visually impaired. "Touch and Write Phonics" allows children to write an entire word, rather than one letter at a time as in some writing apps. Blends, digraphs, trigraphs, short and long vowels are color-coded to help children learn them. After completing a word, children have a brief reward time in the prize room. Children may drag their monster or tilt the iPad to make it eat the cupcakes. They may tap the balloons to review their phonics words – and as soon as balloons are popped, the reward time will end. Parents and teachers may change the length of reward time in the "Settings" panel. Reward time can be adjusted from 0 up to 20 seconds. "Touch and Write Phonics" was created by elementary classroom teachers, and is based on best teaching practices. It integrates visual, kinesthetic and simulated tactile modalities to enhance learning – and fun! ▫▫ Tracking Children's Progress ▫▫ Parents and teachers may tap the player name button at any time to display a report of the child's practice sessions, or they may tap the "View practice reports" button. This displays the phonics lists practiced by a child, organized by date, and reports the number of times the child practiced each list. "Letters correct / total letters" allows parents and teachers to determine the percentage of letters formed without error. There is even an "Email" button to send an email copy of the report to yourself or to a student's parents. ▫▫ Individualizing ▫▫ Parents and teachers can create individualized lists for children to practice. Simply scroll through the phonics words list and add words to a child's list. Parent reviews of our "Touch and Write" app have included comments such as: "the easiest app for me to customize." Have fun, and please contact us with any questions, problems or suggestions: fizzbrain@gmail.com . We value our customers and want to hear how we can make our products serve your needs better! We have already made many improvements based on your feedback!
Dexteria Dots
This app makes learning addition, subtraction, and number sense fun for children aged 3-6 through interactive dot manipulation. It helps build mathematical confidence and problem-solving skills while strengthening fine motor abilities. Engaging rewards keep young learners motivated.
- Interactive dot manipulation for math concepts
- Develops addition and subtraction skills
- Enhances number sense and counting
- Improves fine motor skills and visual tracking
- Problem-solving and planning challenges
- Unlockable 'monster' rewards
- Adaptive difficulty levels
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Dexteria Dots – Preschool Math turns learning addition, subtraction, and number sense into an intuitive hands-on experience that builds mathematical confidence in children age 3-6. Through playful interaction, children explore fundamental math concepts as they tap, drag, and combine colorful dots. The game encourages planning and problem solving rather than random tapping, helping kids strengthen fine motor skills, visual tracking, precision, and number awareness. Along the way, they unlock fun “monster” rewards that keep the learning experience engaging and endlessly replayable. Praised for its simplicity and depth, Dexteria Dots has been described as having “fun game action that inspires learning through play” by iPhoneMom.com. Selected by Apple as a Best New App in Education and winner of the Children’s Technology Review Editor’s Choice Award, it supports Common Core math standards and is highly rated by teachers, parents, and occupational therapists. Occupational therapists appreciate how the game strengthens visual-motor coordination, improves fine-motor control and spatial reasoning, and reinforces visual memory and motor planning. Each dot in the game has four math-related attributes (number, pips, color, and size) and as players advance, visual cues are gradually reduced, encouraging deeper understanding and flexible thinking. From Beginner to Expert, the challenge adapts to each child’s pace, providing endless fun and skill development. We take your child’s privacy seriously. Dexteria Dots contains no ads, no data tracking, and no in-app purchases. It’s developmentally sound play that children love and parents can trust.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Dexteria Dots at 4.0 against Touch and Write Phonics's 1.0. Dexteria Dots also leads on review sentiment (57% vs 25%) and ratings volume (17 vs 2). Touch and Write Phonics's advantage is price ($2.99 vs $3.99) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 13.0). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Touch and Write Phonics costs $2.99 and Dexteria Dots $3.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Dexteria Dots holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Dexteria Dots has 17 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 25% of Touch and Write Phonics's written reviews are positive against 57% of Dexteria Dots's.
Touch and Write Phonics ships an update every 2 months, Dexteria Dots every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on August 18, 2026 and September 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Touch and Write Phonics | Dexteria Dots |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 — better | $3.99 |
| Rating | 1.0 (2 ratings) | 4.0 (17 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 25.0% of reviews | 57.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 17 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 77 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | FIZZBRAIN LLC | BinaryLabs, Inc. |
Customer experience
Touch and Write Phonics
Dexteria Dots
In-app purchases
Touch and Write Phonics
No in-app purchases
Dexteria Dots
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Touch and Write Phonics free?
Is Dexteria Dots free?
Which has better reviews, Touch and Write Phonics or Dexteria Dots?
Do Touch and Write Phonics or Dexteria Dots have ads?
Which is updated more often, Touch and Write Phonics or Dexteria Dots?
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