HB Following Directions vs Initial Code
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HB Following Directions
This educational app helps children improve auditory processing and following directions skills through a fun game format. It systematically teaches basic concepts and listening skills essential for reading, adapting to different learning levels.
- Follows increasingly difficult directions
- Teaches 40 basic concepts
- Improves listening and sound awareness
- Fun game format
- Monitors progress and provides feedback
- Adapts to different skill levels
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Our award-winning, research-based and evidence-based software program is now an iPad app! HearBuilder Following Directions gives students a systematic way to improve their auditory and following directions skills! At the same time, students will learn how to become Master Toy Makers while building their own Toy Central factories. App features: • Follow increasingly difficult directions • Demonstrate knowledge of 40 basic concepts in five areas: Basic Directions, Sequential Directions, Quantitative & Spatial Directions, Temporal Directions, and Conditional Directions • Teaches children important listening and sound awareness for reading • Uses a fun game format to teach children better auditory processing and listening skills • Meets the needs of children with different skill levels • Monitors progress and provides frequent feedback With HearBuilder Online at my.hearbuilder.com you can: • Access all four HearBuilder programs – Following Directions, Phonological Awareness, Auditory Memory and Sequencing • Monitor progress and track student data • Individualize each student’s program settings • Set levels of difficulty for each activity • Add background noise at any level and adjust the volume for each student • Customize and print reports
Initial Code
This educational app helps young children learn to read and spell in English through interactive activities. It focuses on blending, segmenting, and sound-spelling correspondences, with units unlocking as progress is made. Designed for iPad, it reinforces learning for automatic reading and writing skills.
- Reading and spelling practice
- Blending and segmenting activities
- Sound-spelling correspondence
- Word and sentence reading/writing
- Unit-based progression
- Reinforces learning through repetition
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The official app for the Sounds-Write Initial Code phonics programme, for learning to read and spell in English. ******* IPAD ONLY ******* This app is currently unavailable on the iPhone because of the writing element of the app. For young children to become fluent readers and spellers they need to rehearse and consolidate what they are learning. It is this, repeated over and over again, that enables their access to alphabetic code knowledge and skills to become totally automatic and internalised processes. This app offers a variety of activities to develop the skills of blending and segmenting, sound spelling correspondence, word reading and writing and some sentences reading and writing. The app has been designed to introduce all the sound-spelling correspondences your child(ren) needs to learn to put them well on the way to learning to read and write. Each unit will be locked until the child has completed enough of the current unit to be able to progress. For more information on the Sounds-Write programme please visit www.sounds-write.co.uk
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Initial Code at 5.0 against HB Following Directions's 3.3. Initial Code also leads on review sentiment (67% vs 38%) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.0). HB Following Directions's advantage is monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases) and ratings volume (24 vs 2). On price, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Initial Code holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: HB Following Directions has 24 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 38% of HB Following Directions's written reviews are positive against 67% of Initial Code's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and November 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HB Following Directions | Initial Code |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (24 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 37.5% of reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 24 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 295 MB | 83 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Super Duper Publications | Sounds-Write Ltd |
Customer experience
HB Following Directions
Initial Code
In-app purchases
HB Following Directions
No in-app purchases
Initial Code
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is HB Following Directions free?
Is Initial Code free?
Which has better reviews, HB Following Directions or Initial Code?
Do HB Following Directions or Initial Code have ads?
Which is updated more often, HB Following Directions or Initial Code?
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