Starfall Alternatives

Starfall gives away its four-step Learn-to-Read program, free for every child, and a sample of everything else on its website. A Starfall membership buys the rest, Pre-K through 5th grade, for $35 a year on Starfall’s website. Starfall’s main app costs $5.99 a month in the app stores, with no yearly option there. Starfall is run by a nonprofit and shows no ads.

Starfall is a low-cost supplement of phonics songs, games, and activities, and the alternative that fits depends on what you want from an app. Families look elsewhere when they want an app that works without a connection, progress reports they can read, or something that feels newer on a tablet. Starfall Learn to Read, Starfall’s own free app, works offline, and Khan Academy Kids is free with an Offline section. Wonster Words works offline and emails you a daily and a weekly report. Hooked on Phonics and Reading Eggs lay out a set path, and ABCmouse adds other subjects.

How we compared them: We make a reading app ourselves, Wonster Words. We have played Starfall, Khan Academy Kids, ABCmouse, Hooked on Phonics, and Reading Eggs. We checked each price and feature on the company’s own site, help center, or app-store listing.

Is Starfall free?

Starfall is partly free. Starfall is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and in its own words, “Members fund our free Learn-to-Read program.” That program has four steps, ABCs, Learn to Read, It’s Fun to Read, and I’m Reading, and Starfall promises it is “Free for every child, forever.” Beyond the program, the free part of Starfall’s website is a sample across all of its topics.

What Starfall offers	What it costs
The four-step Learn-to-Read program	Free
A sample across all of Starfall’s topics, on its website	Free
Starfall Learn to Read, a separate app for the program’s second step	Free, with no in-app purchases
A membership on Starfall’s website, for one household	$35 a year
A subscription in Starfall’s main app	$5.99 a month in the app stores, with no yearly option there

Starfall’s free part has no time limit, so it is not a trial. In our use, the membership buys more within Starfall’s topics rather than new ones. Starfall describes it as “access to all activities spanning Pre-K through 5th grade.” It says home users “save over 50%” of a year’s app-store subscription by joining on its website.

Starfall shows no ads, free or paid. Starfall says it “does not display any advertising to children on our websites or apps.”

Is Starfall enough to teach your child to read?

Starfall gives your child practice, and learning to read also takes teaching and daily reading with you, so Starfall works best alongside both. Starfall teaches phonics first, through songs, games, and activities, and its four free steps run from the ABCs to fiction and nonfiction books. It also has a grade 1 spelling game, and printable worksheet generators, most of which take your own words or letters.

Learning to read covers five parts, and an app gives a child daily practice in the early ones. The National Reading Panel named five components of reading instruction: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. It found systematic phonics instruction more effective than teaching little or no phonics. A practice guide from the Institute of Education Sciences, written for schools, adds reading connected text every day. A review of educational app studies by Kim, Gilbert, Yu, and Gale (2021) found the largest effects for preschoolers. The effects were also larger on constrained skills such as letter sounds than on broader ones such as comprehension.

Read with your child every day, and ask them to sound out the words they can. For a child who needs more structure, our guide to choosing an app, a workbook, or a curriculum compares the programs that lay out every lesson.

Why do families look for a Starfall alternative?

Families look past Starfall for three reasons, and the reason decides which alternative fits.

1. The main app needs a connection. We found that Starfall’s main app does not work offline, and its App Store listing agrees: “This app requires an internet connection.” Starfall Learn to Read is different. Its listing says “Travel-ready. No internet connection required.” Before you rely on any app, test it in airplane mode.
2. There are no progress reports. Starfall says that “individualized tracking and reports are not provided by Starfall,” and that is by design.
3. The look. In our use, Starfall’s interface feels dated, closer to the early 2000s than to a current app, and its content still looks likely to engage a young child.

Paying through an app store is a fourth reason. Starfall’s main app costs $5.99 a month there, so a year costs about twice Starfall’s website membership.

What are the best Starfall alternatives?

The best Starfall alternative depends on what you want next. Take the option that fits.

You want a free app that works in the car: Starfall Learn to Read. It is Starfall’s own, free with no in-app purchases, and it practices CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words, sight words, and vowel teams. Its listing says it needs no internet connection, and its App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected.” Our guide to ad-free reading apps covers the free ones in detail. Khan Academy Kids is free too, with no ads, and keeps a section labeled Offline, with stories, letters, numbers, logic, and letter tracing. For when free is enough, see our guide to free phonics apps and resources.

You want an app that works offline and reports progress to you: Wonster Words. Wonster Words costs $10.99 a month or $59.99 a year for up to four children, with a 7-day free trial. That is more than Starfall’s $35 a year, and the difference buys full features offline and a report on your child’s practice in your inbox.

You want more subjects than reading: ABCmouse. ABCmouse is a broad, ad-free curriculum for ages 2–8, with a free Basic tier of up to 10 activities a day. Its Offline Mode is for Premium subscribers and holds a preset selection of videos and games.

You want one set path, step by step: Hooked on Phonics or Reading Eggs. Hooked on Phonics’ app follows a published sequence from letters to short books, Pre-K through second grade. It costs $14.99 a month or $129.99 a year, with a 7-day free trial, and our Hooked on Phonics review covers it in full. Reading Eggs is one plan for up to four children, at $13.99 a month or $99.99 a year with a 30-day free trial. Reading Eggs places your child with a test at the start, and we found no way to skip ahead or choose a skill. It suits a family happy to follow its path. It has a parent progress dashboard, and we found that it does not work offline.

You want a website like Starfall, used on a computer: ABCmouse or Reading Eggs. ABCmouse runs on a desktop or laptop through its website. Reading Eggs says it can be used on desktops and tablets.

Your child loves Starfall’s games and wants more of them: reading games. Our guide to reading games for kids picks the best ones at each age, and our guides to ABC games and sight word games have games to play at home.

For the wider field, our comparison of phonics apps sets the apps against each other, and our guide to reading apps by age sorts them by your child’s age.

• Starfall: the $35 membership is bought on Starfall’s website.
• Starfall Learn to Read: the 0–5 range is the band on its App Store listing.
• Khan Academy Kids: its Offline section is preset, so a parent cannot choose what goes in it.
• ABCmouse: the 30-day trial is on the monthly plan, for sign-ups on its website.
• Hooked on Phonics: the price and trial are for the app alone. Its box plans, which ship printed workbooks, are priced separately.
• Reading Eggs: the 2–13 age range is the bundle’s. Reading Eggs itself runs from pre-K through second grade.

Starfall vs. ABCmouse

Starfall vs. ABCmouse is a choice between a low-cost reading supplement and a broad curriculum. ABCmouse covers reading among other subjects for ages 2–8, at $14.99 a month or $59.99 a year, with a free Basic tier of up to 10 activities a day. Starfall costs $35 a year on its website, with a free sample across its topics and its free Learn-to-Read program. Both are ad-free. In our use, much of ABCmouse’s hold on a child comes from reward play such as avatar dress-up, room decoration, and pet play. Starfall suits a family that wants inexpensive phonics practice, and ABCmouse suits one that wants a single subscription across many subjects. If you are leaving ABCmouse instead, our guide to ABCmouse alternatives compares it with five other apps, Starfall included.

What age is Starfall for?

Starfall’s membership covers Pre-K through 5th grade, in Starfall’s own words, and its main app’s listing gives the same span: “intended for Pre-K, Kindergarten, and Grades 1-5.” Starfall’s free program starts at the ABCs, so a preschooler can begin there. The Starfall Learn to Read app sits in Apple’s “Made for Ages 0–5” band on the App Store. For an older child who is still struggling to read, our guide to reading help for struggling readers sets out the options.

At any age, judge Starfall or its replacement away from the screen. Ask your child to read a page from a new library book. If they sound out words they have never practiced, with less help than last month, the practice is working.