Savvas Learning Company

Savvas Homeschool is the homeschool storefront of Savvas Learning Company, a publisher of school curriculum for kindergarten through high school. Savvas offers families its named school programs in print and digital form, and gives parents a teacher account on its Savvas Realize platform to run them at home. The homepage describes "innovative print and digital solutions" for homeschooling families and a curriculum that "spans from early learning to high school, featuring interactive lessons, activities, and assessments that align with national standards."

The site calls itself "Your Homeschool Resources Destination." Families can browse by discipline (Mathematics, Reading/Language Arts, Science, Social Studies and Supplemental) or by grade, from Early Childhood (PreK) and each grade from Kindergarten to 8th Grade through High School. A banner on the homepage points Texas families to state-aligned homeschool resources.

The programs on offer

The homeschool catalog is a short list of the company's flagship programs:

• Mathematics: enVision Mathematics Grades K-5, enVision Mathematics Grades 6-8, and enVision A|G|A, which covers Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 for high school.
• Reading and language arts: myView Literacy and myPerspectives English Language Arts.
• Science: elevateScience, Miller & Levine Biology and Experience Chemistry.
• Social studies: myWorld Interactive K-5 Social Studies, myWorld Interactive for Middle Grades, US History Interactive, World History Interactive and Magruder's American Government Interactive.
• Supplemental: Words Their Way Classroom, D'Nealian Handwriting and Savvas Essentials: Foundational Reading.

That gives a family a path from elementary math and literacy through high school algebra, biology, chemistry, history and government, with handwriting, word study and foundational reading as add-ons for younger children or those who need more practice.

Several of these programs carry a long classroom record, according to the company's About page. It says Miller & Levine Biology launched in 1990 and is still the country's best-selling high school biology program, that the enVision series "has supported more classrooms in the US and around the world since 2007 than any other math program today," and that myPerspectives English Language Arts "leads sales in grades 6-12 literacy market." For a homeschool parent, that means the same textbooks and digital lessons many schools use.

Teaching it at home with Savvas Realize

The digital side of each program runs on Savvas Realize. The Homeschool Digital Access Support Center walks a parent through the setup, which works like a classroom with the parent as teacher:

• Register a teacher account: the Homeschool Teacher Registration Guide covers registering and starting to use the digital curriculum.
• Log in and add programs: a getting-started guide shows where to sign in and how to add purchased programs to the Realize account.
• Find your way around: two guides cover the different areas of the Realize home page and how to move through program content.
• Create a class and add your student: the parent sets up a class, manages the student roster and edits class settings.
• Assign content: the parent assigns lessons and assessments to a child and checks assignment completion status.

Inside Realize, more training sits behind the question mark in the upper right corner, under "Program Training," which opens additional trainings and video tutorials. The About page says Realize first launched in 2013 to bring learning assessments and content into one place, and that over 43 million assignments and assessments were completed on it in 2018-2019.

Families who want access to a digital product, or who hit registration or technical problems, use the Digital Access Request Form. An Order Tracking page handles placing orders, checking their status and getting help with an order once it arrives, which covers the printed materials as well as digital access.

Who is behind it

The About page tells the company's history through its predecessors. It traces Savvas back to Scott, Foresman and Company, which it says began publishing elementary school books in 1909 and published the first Dick and Jane stories in 1930, and to Prentice Hall, founded in 1913. It says Pearson K12 Learning became a standalone company in March 2019 and launched the Savvas Learning Company brand in May 2020. Under "Savvas by the numbers" it lists 125+ years of tradition, 13K districts served and 40M+ students served.

The page also says that many employees are former teachers, and quotes several of them. Ryan, a product training manager and former math teacher, writes that instructional technology lets students "learn mathematics in a way that includes video and animated tutorials while addressing the needs of high achieving students and those with gaps in their knowledge." Jamil, the national product line VP for literacy, writes that the larger goal is getting students "to be able to explain how they came to that answer," even when the answer is wrong, because developing critical thinkers serves them into adult life. The page also says Savvas launched new screener and diagnostic assessments in 2021, and it offers to guide customers through "our blended solutions, digital textbooks and printed materials."

Buying and support

The homeschool pages list programs and a cart but print no prices. Signing up for Savvas Homeschool Updates brings news of the Deal of the Week, new resources and subscriber-only offers, and the homepage promises 10% off the first order to anyone who signs up. A Register to Save link sits under Resources.

Technical support is available online or by phone at 800-848-9500, Monday through Friday from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm EST, according to the support center. A contact page covers other questions, and the About page links educator resources a homeschool parent can also use: trend articles and podcasts, educator workshops and webinars, and a newsroom with product news.

Who it suits

Savvas Homeschool suits families who want a traditional, textbook-based program with the structure and scope of a school curriculum, and who are comfortable acting as the classroom teacher inside a platform built for schools. Parents who plan for a child to return to a conventional school, or who simply trust well-known classroom programs, get the same enVision, myView and Miller & Levine materials. The supplemental titles help families who already use another curriculum but want a handwriting, word study or phonics program alongside it.

It is less of a fit for families who want a ready-made homeschool day with lesson plans written for one parent and one child, or a live teacher. The parent sets up classes, assigns work and checks completion, so some comfort with an online platform helps. Families following a literature-based or unschooling approach may find a standards-aligned school program more structured than they want.