Word Problems with Sprout

Your child can add 8 and 5. So why does the word problem stop them?

Because it is often not a math gap at all. The child could not read the sentence - and we wrote it down as a math gap.

This book takes the words out of the way. Every one of the 20 problems is checked word by word against a phonics level before it is printed: short vowels, digraphs and blends only. And here is the part that matters - the reading never gets harder. A child working on Level 5 reads exactly the same difficulty of sentence as a child on Level 1. Only the math climbs. That is what finally makes the level tell you something.

Five problem types, in the order children actually learn them.

• Level 1 - Add It On. Something is there. More arrives. Put them together.


• Level 2 - Take It Away. Something is there. Some goes away. What is left?


• Level 3 - Two Parts, One Whole. Two groups, no action. Snap them together.


• Level 4 - Line Them Up. Compare. Two amounts, line them up, look at the gap. This is the one children struggle with most, so it gets its own level.


• Level 5 - Pick Your Plan. Two things happen. Do one step, then the next.

One tool, taught deeply. The Story Bar is a bar model, and it changes shape as the problem changes - a growing bar, a shrinking bar, two parts under one whole, two bars side by side. One drawing beats a keyword hunt every time.

And no keyword tricks. This book never teaches that "altogether means add." Keywords collapse the moment a problem is worded differently. Structure does not.

What is inside

• 20 original word problems, four per level, numbers within 10 then within 20


• Read It, Draw It, Solve It, Check It - the bar gets drawn before a single number is written


• A worked example on every level where Sprout thinks it through out loud


• What I Know and What I Must Find boxes on every problem


• A full answer key with the number sentence and the bar shape for each


• Level checks, a progress tracker, a small-group record sheet, and a certificate


• A calm-down tool per level, from the Sprout Feels picture books, for the child who has learned to dread word problems

No prep. Open it, sit down, teach. Built for the classroom teacher, the interventionist, the tutor and the parent at the kitchen table.

Completes the ladder. Number Sense with Sprout builds counting. Brave Math with Sprout builds adding and taking away. This one builds meaning. Each stands alone.

"Draw it first. The picture tells you what to do." - Sprout