Claro ScanPen vs First Words ATF
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Claro ScanPen
This app allows you to take a photo of printed text and have it read aloud to you instantly. It uses OCR technology to convert images to text and supports multiple languages. It's ideal for students, professionals, and anyone needing auditory access to printed materials, even without an internet connection.
- Photo capture of printed text
- Selectable text for audio playback
- Instant human-quality voice output
- Offline functionality
- Multi-language support
- OCR technology
- Copy and share text
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Need to listen to printed text spoken aloud - at school, in a test or exam, at work or at home? Use Claro ScanPen to photo your printed text document, letter, test paper - then select the text with your finger (or stylus), and hear it spoken straight back to you. Instantly! No internet connection required. Claro ScanPen advances reading aloud support. It gives access to printed text materials and documents for all, in a wide range of languages. Using your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, simply: • Take a photo of the text or select a photo of the text document from your camera roll. • Highlight with your finger or stylus which section of text you want to hear spoken to you. • Listen as Claro ScanPen instantly reads the text back to you using a human quality voice in a language of your choice. With your finger (or stylus) you can highlight all of the text, word by word or line by line. Tap anywhere to stop the speech. Claro ScanPen can also be used with the built in iOS VoiceOver accessibility feature, allowing low vision and blind users to access text. Claro ScanPen has no access to the internet or any reference material, so is perfect to use as a computer reader under exam and test conditions, helping students who cannot read text very well (e.g. students with dyslexia) to listen to the exam test paper questions and information. It can also be used for quickly converting class handout materials, printed presentations, instructions, books - in fact anything containing printed texts. Great for independent access and learning. Claro ScanPen uses the latest premium Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to convert your picture into text and uses iOS system voices to read the text back to you. The OCR in Claro ScanPen fully supports the recognition of text in the following languages: • English • Danish • Dutch • French • German • Italian • Norwegian • Portuguese • Spanish • Swedish Simply select the voice that matches the language of your text to hear it read back correctly. Higher-quality Nuance Expressive and Acapela voices are available to purchase in-app. Claro ScanPen is a great addition to the popular Claro Reading and Writing support apps ClaroSpeak and ClaroPDF. Claro ScanPen does not require internet access to function. Explore using the Apple iOS Guided Access feature to lock the iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone into a single app, for more secure and controlled usage. Tap iOS Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access to set up Guided Access. Selected text can be copied to the clipboard by enabling the advanced setting in iOS Settings. A share button can be enabled in advanced settings in iOS Settings. This lets you export your image to other apps, email and other destinations. Now supports drag and drop of the scanned text, to apps that support text, such as Notes. Requires iOS 11 and an iPad that supports multi-tasking. *** Minimum camera spec: 2MP *** If you require any product support please email us at support@clarosoftware.com. We cannot respond to any support requests made via the App Store review channel, so please email us first.
First Words ATF
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FIRST WORDS. This is a simple, easy to use, no frills app. It has been developed for convenience, aimed at casual use as well as for the classroom. However, unlike many early learning aids, this app is “age appropriate”, making it accessible to all and useful for those with additional learning needs. The app can be re-visited frequently for short, quick revisions and the counter can be used for setting personal goals. This app is a perfect assessment tool for teachers, parents and students. USING THIS APP 1. Select the number of ‘First Words’ you wish to practise. 2. Click the ‘play’ symbol to advance through the words. 3. The objective is to speed up random word recognition. 4. The counter can be used to create goals. Learning note: Advance to the next level at your leisure but be prepared to go back to re-enforce where necessary. SOCIAL WORDS This screen is aimed primarily at those with a learning disability, to enable them to learn to recognise words which will help them develop independence skills in a wider environment. This also gives the teacher/mentor an opportunity to teach the student the meaning of the words. PRACTISE MAKES PERFECT When teaching reading it may be that we do not put enough emphasis on “DATA OVERLOAD”. A pupil can struggle to read even though you are sure they know the word, purely because there are too many words in front of them. The greater the student’s ‘sight vocabulary’ the easier reading becomes, enabling a greater degree of comprehension. With practise, improvement in speed of neurological processing, anxiety in coping with more words per page is reduced, giving the student more confidence to try new words. As stated earlier, we have purposely randomised the words to avoid rote learning. However, due to this randomisation, words will occasionally appear consecutively, particularly in early stages. This is a progressive learning tool, therefore the first 12 words will appear within the first 45 words and so on. ACTIVE THERAPY FOUNDATION Active Therapy Foundation is a UK charity with aims of promoting social inclusion, providing innovative and dedicated coaching therapy programmes, making "Active therapy" available to all, thus developing skills and enabling individuals to participate more fully in society. Active therapy explores ways of developing higher achievement levels for people with disabilities. It pushes the boundaries of “accept and adapt” and has a direct approach to systematic problem solving. The programme is practically based, working on the principle of self-achievement. It is designed to explore ways of giving a feeling of achievement at ALL levels of ability, breaking down the skills sufficiently so that EVERYONE CAN SUCCEED.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: First Words ATF at $1.99 against Claro ScanPen's $9.99. First Words ATF also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 10). Claro ScanPen's advantage is device support (3 vs 1). On update cadence, ads and iOS requirement 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
Claro ScanPen costs $9.99 and First Words ATF $1.99 up front. Claro ScanPen sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. First Words ATF asks for nothing beyond the download.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and May 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Claro ScanPen | First Words ATF |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | $1.99 — better |
| Rating | 4.2 (148 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 23.5% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 148 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 14.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 136 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Claro Software Limited | Active Therapy Development Limited |
In-app purchases
Claro ScanPen
- Allison$1.99
- Ava$1.99
- Samantha$1.99
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- Tom$1.99
- Susan$1.99
- Heather$1.99
- Ryan$1.99
- Micah$1.99
- Rod$1.99
- Tyler$1.99
First Words ATF
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Claro ScanPen free?
Is First Words ATF free?
Do Claro ScanPen or First Words ATF have ads?
Which is updated more often, Claro ScanPen or First Words ATF?
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