Special notice for parents and schools: ReadSprout is designed for children. We take children's privacy extremely seriously. We collect only the minimum data necessary to provide our educational service, we never sell or share student data for advertising or marketing, and we comply fully with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and the FTC's 2025 COPPA Rule amendments effective April 22, 2026.
1. Who We Are
ReadSprout Education LLC ("ReadSprout," "we," "us," or "our") operates the ReadSprout literacy platform at readsprout.app. We provide adaptive, Science of Reading-based literacy instruction for learners from PreK through Grade 12.
ReadSprout Education LLC is a limited liability company registered in the United States.
Contact: hello@readsprout.app · readsprout.app
2. Who This Policy Covers
This Privacy Policy applies to:
- Children under 13 who use ReadSprout through a family subscription or school account
- Students ages 13–17 who use ReadSprout through a school account
- Parents and guardians who create family accounts
- Teachers, administrators, and school staff who use ReadSprout's educator tools
- Visitors to readsprout.app who have not created an account
3. COPPA Notice — Children Under 13
ReadSprout is a child-directed service subject to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), 15 U.S.C. § 6501 et seq., and the FTC's COPPA Rule (16 C.F.R. Part 312), including the 2025 amendments effective April 22, 2026.
Parental Consent
We obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13. ReadSprout uses two COPPA-approved consent mechanisms:
- Family accounts: A parent or guardian creates the account, providing an email address and completing payment verification via credit or debit card. Payment verification constitutes verifiable parental consent under COPPA.
- School accounts: When ReadSprout is used in a school setting, the school acts as the parent's agent under COPPA's "school official" exception and provides consent for educational use only. Schools may not authorize ReadSprout to use student data for any commercial purpose.
Parents' Rights Under COPPA
Parents and guardians have the right to:
- Review the personal information we have collected from their child
- Request deletion of their child's personal information
- Refuse further collection or use of their child's information
- Revoke consent at any time (note: revocation may limit or terminate access to the service)
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at hello@readsprout.app. We will respond within 10 business days.
4. What Information We Collect
We follow a data minimization principle — we collect only what is necessary to deliver our educational service. We do not require children to provide real names, photos, or unnecessary personal details.
| Data type |
What we collect |
Who it applies to |
Do we collect from children? |
| Account information |
Username (not real name), grade level or age range, reading level |
All users |
Yes — minimal |
| Parent/guardian contact |
Parent email address, payment information (processed by Stripe — we do not store card numbers) |
Family accounts |
Parent only |
| Learning activity data |
Lesson completions, assessment scores, skill mastery levels, XP points, session duration |
All learners |
Yes — educational |
| Voice recordings (fluency coach) |
Short oral reading recordings used to score fluency (WCPM). Processed in real time and not stored permanently. |
Users of AI fluency feature |
Yes — with consent |
| Device and usage data |
Device type, operating system, session timestamps, feature usage — no persistent device identifiers |
All users |
Yes — minimal |
| Teacher/admin data |
Name, school email, school name, role, roster data |
Educators only |
Adults only |
What We Do NOT Collect
- Children's real names (usernames only)
- Children's photographs or profile pictures
- Exact birthdates (age range or grade level only)
- Precise geolocation data
- Social Security numbers or government-issued identifiers
- Biometric identifiers other than temporary voice processing for the fluency coach
- Behavioral advertising profiles
- Data from children's activities on other websites or apps
5. How We Use Information
We use information collected from children only for educational purposes directly related to providing the ReadSprout service:
- Personalizing adaptive learning paths based on reading level and performance
- Tracking progress and generating reports for parents, teachers, and administrators
- Scoring oral reading fluency through the AI fluency coach
- Awarding XP, badges, and tracking streaks for engagement
- Providing technical support and responding to inquiries
- Improving the safety, reliability, and quality of our platform
We never use children's data for: advertising, marketing, sale to third parties, behavioral profiling, or any purpose outside the educational service.
6. How We Share Information
We do not sell student data. Period. We share information only in the following limited circumstances:
- With schools and districts: Student progress data is accessible to the teacher, school administrator, and district administrator who are party to the school's ReadSprout agreement.
- With parents: Parents of children under 13 have access to their child's full progress data through the parent dashboard.
- With service providers: We work with a small number of vendors who help us operate the platform (cloud hosting, payment processing). All vendors are contractually prohibited from using student data for any purpose other than providing their service to us. See Section 9 for our vendor list.
- Legal requirements: We may disclose information if required by law, court order, or to protect the safety of a child.
We obtain separate verifiable parental consent before sharing any child's personal information with third parties for purposes outside the educational service, consistent with the 2025 COPPA amendments.
7. Voice Data and the AI Fluency Coach
ReadSprout's AI fluency coach uses speech recognition to score a child's oral reading in real time. This feature involves voice data, which is classified as biometric information under the 2025 COPPA amendments.
- Voice recordings are processed in real time to produce a words-correct-per-minute (WCPM) score
- Raw voice recordings are not stored permanently on our servers after processing is complete
- Voice data is never shared with third parties for any purpose
- This feature is disclosed at account creation and requires explicit consent from the parent or school before activation
- Parents may disable the fluency coach feature at any time through account settings without affecting access to other platform features
8. Data Retention and Deletion
Consistent with the 2025 COPPA Rule's mandatory data retention limits, we retain children's personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the educational purpose for which it was collected.
- Active accounts: Data is retained while the account is active
- Inactive family accounts: Data is deleted after 24 months of inactivity
- School accounts: Student data is deleted within 60 days of a school's request or within 60 days of contract termination
- Voice processing data: Deleted immediately after the fluency score is generated
- Parent deletion requests: Processed within 10 business days
To request deletion of your child's data, email hello@readsprout.app with the subject line "Data Deletion Request."
9. Third-Party Service Providers
We use the following third-party service providers who may have access to personal information. All are bound by data processing agreements prohibiting use of student data for any purpose outside their service to ReadSprout:
| Provider | Purpose | Data accessed | COPPA compliant |
|---|
| Amazon Web Services (AWS) |
Cloud hosting and data storage |
All platform data (encrypted) |
Yes |
| Stripe |
Payment processing |
Parent payment info only — never student data |
Yes |
| Resend |
Transactional email |
Parent email addresses only |
Yes |
We do not use advertising networks, behavioral analytics SDKs, or any third-party tracking tools that access student data.
10. Security
- All data is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2 or higher
- All data is encrypted at rest using AES-256 encryption
- Access to student data is role-based — teachers see only their own students, administrators see only their school or district
- We conduct regular security reviews and will notify affected users within 72 hours of any data breach involving student personal information
11. FERPA
When ReadSprout is used by a school or district, ReadSprout acts as a "school official" under FERPA (20 U.S.C. § 1232g) with a legitimate educational interest. In this capacity:
- Student education records are used only for the school's authorized educational purpose
- ReadSprout does not disclose student education records to third parties without the school's written consent, except as required by law
- Schools retain ownership of student education records at all times
- Upon contract termination, ReadSprout will return or securely delete all student education records within 60 days
12. Changes to This Policy
We will notify parents and schools by email at least 30 days before making any material changes to this Privacy Policy. For changes that involve new or different uses of children's personal information, we will obtain fresh verifiable parental consent before implementing the change.
13. Contact Us — Privacy Questions and Parent Rights