Endless Reader is a marvellous app: an app that came out in November last year as a follow-up to the equally-spiffing Endless Alphabet. Both saw a colourful troupe of monsters teaching children letters and words.

Endless Reader was a freemium app: free to download and use in limited form, but then using in-app purchases to sell ‘packs’ of words. It’s a neat system, but not all parents are comfortable with in-app purchases – and just as importantly, schools aren’t generally able to even use them.

No worries – meet Endless Reader: School Edition. Released this week for iPhone and iPad, it’s exactly the same app, but entirely paid for upfront. It costs £13.99, for which you get 99 “level 1” words, and later in the year 243 more from levels two and three, with no added cost.

Developer Originator says the app also has a couple of new features requested by teachers: the requirement that children spell words in the right order, and the ability to turn off the background music.

Otherwise, it’s the same: the monsters scatter the letters for a word, then your child drags them back into place, before seeing how that word fits into a sentence – which the monsters then act out in a fun animation.

The School Edition is good news for teachers, obviously – assuming it fits well into their existing curriculum, which we’re not really qualified to judge if we’re honest – but we think it may appeal to quite a few parents as well. At least, those prepared to pay 14 quid up front for an educational app.

Endless Reader: School Edition costs £13.99 for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store.

Read about more alphabet apps for kids on Apps Playground, and check out our 100 Best iPad Apps of 2013 e-book – £1.99 from Apple’s iBooks Store