How to use BrainSprout

A simple guide to setting BrainSprout up, playing it so your child stays interested, and keeping their results accurate — including the one switch to tap before a grown-up plays.

How do I…?

The things parents ask most, each with the exact steps. Almost everything a grown-up sets lives in one place: tap “🔒 For grown-ups” at the bottom of your child's screen, then answer the quick sum (or your PIN). Your child's own screen stays just the games.

Before you start

Set BrainSprout up once, on the child's device, so play is calm and — just as important — so it actually saves.

1. Use one dedicated device. A laptop or tablet the child links with BrainSprout. Remove or hide other apps like YouTube so there is nothing to wander off to.
2. Open the right app. India: play.geniuslane.com. UK: play-uk.geniuslane.com. A child only exists in their own region's app.
3. Sign in as the parent, then pick the enrolled child. Tap the child already in the list — do not type in a “new player”. Only a signed-in, enrolled child's play is saved; otherwise the app plays offline and records nothing.
4. Turn on Focus Mode. Lock the screen to just BrainSprout so the child cannot leave mid-game — Guided Access on iPad/iPhone, App Pinning on Android. The app shows the exact steps under For grown-ups → Keep them in the game, and offers it the first time you open it.

A BrainSprout session, step by step

Keep it short, warm and daily — ten happy minutes beat a long, tired sitting.

1. You play first, and show you love it. Before you start, tap “I'm a grown-up — tap this before YOU play”, play a game, smile, react. Your delight is what makes the child want a turn.
2. Hand over — but tap the grown-up switch off first. This one step keeps your play out of your child's results (see the next section).
3. The child plays their games. BrainSprout shows the day's games, one per area (reading, maths, visual-spatial, thinking, everyday skills). They do not need all of them every day.
4. Sprout guides them. The green sprout greets the child by name and suggests what to play, in one warm, natural voice; the child can tap to talk to it. Sprout only ever suggests games you have left switched on, and leans gently towards the ones you have made favourites (see For grown-ups below).
5. Finish on a win. Stop while it is still fun, so they want to come back tomorrow.

Grown-ups: play without affecting your child's results

Tap “I'm a grown-up” before you play, and tap it off before your child does. BrainSprout measures your child's development from how they play. If you play — even just to show them, or to warm them up — while the switch is off, your adult answers are recorded as your child's. Over a few sessions that can wrongly push one or two areas far above the child's real level, and it then shows on their clinical report.

1. Before you play: tap the switch (it turns purple). Now nothing you do counts as the child.
2. Before your child plays: tap it off again. Now their play is measured normally.
3. If in doubt, don't play the games for them. Show interest, cheer them on, sit beside them — that never affects their score.

While the grown-up switch is on, a per-game Too hard control also appears, so you can skip a game that isn't landing. It stays hidden on the child's own screen — so there is nothing extra there for them to fiddle with, just the games.

Where everything is

The child's screen is just the games — a clean board of big, tappable tiles, with nothing else to wander into: no settings, no progress screens. Everything a grown-up needs sits in For grown-ups, opened with a PIN you set (with a quick sum as a backup, if you haven't set a PIN yet or you tap Forgot PIN). The only other thing on the child's screen is the “I'm a grown-up” switch, for the one moment a grown-up plays.

Inside For grown-ups you'll find:

• Lessons language — the language the games teach in.
• Sprout's voice — how Sprout talks to your child: Warm & gentle, Playful or Slow & calm, with a Hear a sample button so you can listen before you choose.
• The Grown-ups PIN — set or change the PIN that opens this area.
• Keep them in the game — Focus Mode, with the steps for your device.
• Accessibility — sounds, buttons and text size.
• Games — hide any game from your child's board (👁️/🙈) and ♥ favourite the ones they love.
• Your child's reading journey — moved here from the child's screen, to read. It shows where they are; it doesn't change what the clinician measures.

Sprout follows these choices: it never suggests a game you've hidden, and it leans gently towards your favourites — a nudge, never something that overrides a genuine learning need. The idea is simple: your clinician decides what's measured; you decide what's shown for fun.

What the results mean

Results show your child's own play — nothing else — and they build up as the child plays. Each area is a developmental age, next to what is typical for the child's age: a picture of where they are now, to guide what to practise — not a pass or fail. Real change is gradual, so a big jump in one area over a few days usually means a grown-up played. Your geniuslane team reads the full report with you.

If something looks wrong

• “Playing offline — not saving” banner. The app can't record this child's play — sign in as the parent and tap the enrolled child (not a typed-in new player).
• The summary stays empty after playing. The play didn't reach the server (offline), or it was grown-up play — check the banner and that you picked the right child.
• One area jumped far ahead of the rest. A grown-up likely played with the switch off — tell your geniuslane team so they can correct the record.
• The child isn't in the list. You may be on the wrong region's app — India uses play.geniuslane.com, UK uses play-uk.geniuslane.com.