The SPROUTS Difference

  • Teach your child to think deeply.

    Writing is our ability to put our thoughts onto paper. SPROUTS helps your child develop deep, analytical thinking skills.

  • Pair with ANY content you study.

    Follow interest based learning or family style unit studies, and use SPROUTS to embed deep writing into your chosen content.

  • Follow the step-by-step guide.

    SPROUTS avoids vague prompts, and instead, provides strategies that children can master to consistently write to build knowledge.
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What to Expect

Grammar and Writing Integrated

Learn grammar in the context of writing to make it meaningful and practical.

Part 1 includes grammar and Part 2 includes writing. Each week, seamlessly blend grammar instruction with writing practice, helping students become confident, polished writers.

Family Style Lessons

Teach all your children together with adaptable lessons designed for multiple ages. SPROUTS fosters a collaborative learning environment, saving time while keeping the whole family engaged.

Builds Critical Thinking Skills

Encourage deeper thought with lessons that go beyond writing mechanics. SPROUTS teaches students to analyze, reason, and express ideas clearly, preparing them for success in any subject.

Flexible Schedule

Fit SPROUTS into your routine with a program designed to work at your family’s pace. Whether you prefer daily lessons or a more relaxed approach, this curriculum adjusts to meet your needs.

How It Began: My Story

After graduating my university's teacher's college, I walked away with an idea about how to teach writing and reading comprehension: Teach children the skills, and then they will be able to use those skills with any content. 

While this sounded good to me at the time, I quickly realized that trying to teach writing skills in isolation wasn't easy. I would deliver a beautiful lesson, inspire them with a personal, open ended prompt, and my students would freeze. "What should I write?" "It's Writer's block." "I don't know what to say." 

The method I had learned, teach the skills, wasn't working. It turns out that having something to say is the foundation of writing. It's difficult to write effectively, or to write at all, if you don't have something to write about. 

As a homeschool parent, I found that I loved many of the topics I studied with my children. We read fantastic books and learned about science, history, and geography. We leaned into narration, and my children became adept at "telling back" what they heard. When it came to writing, often, the curriculum would present writing tasks, like, "Write a brochure about the place we just read about!" or "Pretend you travelled to this time period. What would you see and do?"

Those work well for some students, and I love the creativity that my kids could come up with. Still, a "Writing Prompt" is not the same as actually being taught how to write. 

And so was born SPROUTS. This system combines sentence instruction along with writing strategies that develop critical thinking and deep understanding of what your children are studying. 

FAQs

1. Grammar is taught in the context of writing. Students learn about grammar in order to use it in writing. Grammatical techniques are presented as tools for writing, not as random terms to memorize. 

2. It complements what you are already learning. This is designed to bring high quality writing and language arts instruction to whatever you are already doing. This makes it more efficient. By combining your writing program with something you're studying in science, history, or literature, your school day is more streamlined. 

3. You can use it in a way that makes sense for your family. Can you fit it in twice a week or five days a week? Do you want to work with your 7 year old and 10 year old together? SPROUTS can do that. You can use it for a season, put it away, and pull it back out next year when you are ready for more writing. 

4. Mastery checkpoints are offered. Parents are given a clear set of items that their child should know before they are ready to move on. Practice activities are given, and parents practice with their child until their child is ready. 

5. Students are taught HOW to write... not just told TO write. While some students seem to naturally pick up on writing, many students need explicit guidance on how to write. Reluctant writers, kids who call themselves a "bad writer", often just need a bit of guidance on how to write. These writing strategies work to give clear steps on how to eliminate the "I don't know what to write" situation that many parents encounter.

Students writing improves when they have something to write about! This program doesn't include writing topics. Instead, it pairs with whatever you are already learning about.

A writing strategy is an open-ended tool that helps students think of information, organize it, and then use that information to write sentences and paragraphs. A simple example that you probably have heard of before is a Venn Diagram. Students think about similarities and differences and organize them into the chart, which then supports them in writing about the similarities and differences. 

Rather than broad requests like, "Add more details!" Students are taught about different techniques to add more detail and meaning to their writing.

This is a flexible writing program that you can use across several years until your child is ready to move on. You can begin as early as 1st of 2nd grade.

This is also a good starting point for a 5th or 6th grade relunctant writer.

You can also cover everything in one year if you follow a more rigorous schedule. 

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