ELSB vs Keyboarding Without Tears
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ELSB
This comprehensive preliteracy curriculum helps students develop essential print and phonemic awareness skills. It offers daily lessons and assessments across seven levels, guided by an engaging narrator and featuring interactive activities like flashcards and tapping games. Students can also personalize their learning experience by creating unique avatars.
- Multi-year preliteracy curriculum
- Levels 1-7 with daily lessons
- Print and phonemic awareness objectives
- Interactive games (tapping, flashcards)
- Customizable student avatars
- Research-backed effectiveness
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The ELSB app is a multi-year preliteracy curriculum for students who have not acquired print and phonemic awareness. The software brings to life Levels 1—7; daily lessons and level assessments. The program narrator and main character Moe the frog, take students through lessons that are built to shape mastery of 14 objectives following an easy-to-hard sequence. Objectives include sight word vocabulary with flashcards, syllable segmentation with a tapping game, and print awareness with pointing to text as it is read. Collaborate with each student to create their own unique avatar. Five years of solid research have been completed through the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, proving ELSB to be a highly effective literacy program and more effective than a sight-word only program. ELSB is based upon the principles of systematic and direct instruction. It incorporates scripted lessons, least-prompt strategies, teachable objectives, built-in lesson repetition, and ongoing assessments. The seven ELSB levels contain five structured lessons each. All students begin at Level 1. Teach scripted lessons daily in two 30-minute sessions. On the completion of each level, formal assessments are given. ELSB includes everything you need to implement a multi-year literacy curriculum.
Keyboarding Without Tears
This app provides touch-typing practice for K-5 students using a game-based curriculum. Licensed users can log in to access assigned activities and develop essential computer skills. An educator account is required for access.
- Game-based touch-typing activities
- Pre-keyboarding lessons
- Developmentally appropriate lessons
- Online progress monitoring
- Digital citizenship training
- Cross-curricular connections
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Access the Keyboarding Without Tears K-5 student curriculum. This app is available for licensed students of Keyboarding Without Tears web-based program and serve as a companion app for touch-typing practice on mobile devices. Students can login and access their Keyboarding Without Tears activities assigned to them by their educator. An existing educator account in +Live Insights educator dashboard is required to access the app. The Keyboarding Without Tears K-5 curriculum features: • Effective, game-based activities • Pre-keyboarding and touch-typing lessons • Developmentally appropriate lessons by grade • Easy online progress monitoring • Digital citizenship and general computer readiness activities • Strong English Language & Arts and other Cross-Curricular connections
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Keyboarding Without Tears at Free against ELSB's $149.99. Keyboarding Without Tears also leads on rating (4.2 vs 4.0). On review sentiment, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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
Keyboarding Without Tears is free to download; ELSB costs $149.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Keyboarding Without Tears holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 5 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 0% of ELSB's written reviews are positive against 4% of Keyboarding Without Tears's.
ELSB ships an update every 6 weeks, Keyboarding Without Tears every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 15, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ELSB | Keyboarding Without Tears |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $149.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.0 (2 ratings) | 4.2 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 4.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 5 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPad | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 13.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 238 MB | 83 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Attainment Company | Handwriting Without Tears & Get Set for School |
Customer experience
ELSB
Keyboarding Without Tears
In-app purchases
ELSB
No in-app purchases
Keyboarding Without Tears
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is ELSB free?
Is Keyboarding Without Tears free?
Which has better reviews, ELSB or Keyboarding Without Tears?
Do ELSB or Keyboarding Without Tears have ads?
Which is updated more often, ELSB or Keyboarding Without Tears?
Other comparisons
