Memorization method

Parenting and Education (Other) After Early Learning
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Nice! I didn’t know about that!

It’s vaguely like that, although spaced repetition software makes the determination when next to show a card, and it’s quite good at making the decision, too.

The story of how freeworldu.org came about is quite similar to that of how watchknowlearn.org and readingbear.org came about!

Another big difference between that method and what I’m doing with H. is that I make the flashcards myself based on what we read. This means that we’re always reviewing cards based on things that we’ve recently read, which helps what we’ve read to stick in our heads better. I am not sure I can recommend studying a lot of flash cards at this level, separately from a systematic study of a subject. I think it is very important that one fully understands what one attempts to memorize.

Frankly, I’m still not 100% sure whether it’s more effective, for purposes of general recall of a text, to use 3-5 questions for a text versus a recorded summary. You can fit a lot more information into a summary, and while of course the student won’t get all of that into explicit memory, he’ll certainly have a lot more in implicit memory. As we both review questions and review old recordings, I find myself comparing the effects of the two on my own understanding. The recordings evoke a whole narrative and the facts, even if they are less firmly grasped, do have a better-contextualized place in one’s conceptual framework than individual questions and answers.

82

Thank you so much for your response :slight_smile: I am going to try this method alongside of all the others we use for homeschooling. I do use different alpha wave music while my kids are doing their work and I have been amazed by the results. It has been a pleasure reading your posts over the years and I look forward to many more. Oh and on another note www.watchknowlearn.org is one of my favorite sites…

Susan Khan

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I have been following this thread with great interest. I have downloaded the supermemo and Anki software to have a play but I am one of these people that is frustrated easily by software that I have to read tooo much into to get working. Patience is a virtue it is not one of mine :frowning:

My eldest dd seems to need alot of repition to remember something which is why I am interested in the spaced repition for maths especially where Ican go over the maths facts over and over again until it is mastered.

I was wondering though how much of everything you learn needs to be remembered? All? 80% or 50%? How much needs to be remembered to have a sufficient building block for the next level of knowledge?

84

You decided to have kids, and you have no patience. What’s wrong with this picture?

Just kidding! Just kidding! My kids make me lose patience on a regular basis.

Believe me, unless you like reading documentation and don’t mind searching (I just use Google instead of any online search function they might have) for the answer on the website, Supermemo is not for you. Really, the only reason I’ve stuck with it is that I just can’t see how to re-use the questions I’m writing now for baby E. when he gets around to tackling the books. Anki is not totally straightforward either, but if you want something really simple, but still powerful enough, try Mnemosyne, which is 100% free.

I don’t know that there is any point in using this sort of software with children under a certain age. I just don’t know what the age might be. After the age of five or six, they start being able to remember things better long-term. I was amazed that H. had almost completely forgotten–like it’s a new book–Tales from the Odyssey, which I’m pretty sure we read only a year ago or so. We also listened to it. That’s quite a few hours spent with it, and yet he remembers only the most dramatic, basic facts about it. You might say that’s a good reason to use spaced repetition. I’m sympathetic to that idea…but he would naturally remember stuff better after a certain age. Now we’re re-listening to it, mostly because we didn’t have anything else ready to listen to, and I’m pretty sure he’ll learn a lot more of it in a year, around his 7th birthday. We’ll see!

How much of everything you learn needs to be remembered? Deep question. I don’t know. Even putting a percentage on it is problematic because, well, how do you count up the facts that you learn? Do you count simple inferences? Do you separate each individual separable fact into its own item? If you are a “splitter” of facts instead of a “lumper,” my guess is that the proportion of extremely well-studied, “mastered” stuff would be quite low.

My guess is that research has been done on this, but I don’t know what it might say.

Of course, what makes it a “deep” question is the stuff that can’t be empirically researched, i.e., how important is factual knowledge?

You don’t need to have remembered much at all to have a sufficient building block for the next level of knowledge, i.e., being able to understand and benefit from it. Using spaced repetition can be justified only by a desire to get knowledge more firmly or more extensive than necessary for gathering higher levels of knowledge later on.

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I know much has been made about the 95% long term retention claim. I’m sure this figure is derived from their vast store of feedback.

I wanted to drop a quick update that I felt was pertinent. I’ve been using Anki for a few different topics (each separated with its own deck), and am currently at 95.8% for my “mature” cards (Anki classifies cards as either mature, young, or new). I’m not sure at which point a card is classified as mature, but would venture to guess around 4-6 weeks.

A few comments of my own. I’ve started using both audio and picture clips in my cards when appropriate. If this is something desired ultimately, then I suggest starting off using these features. I’d presume other features such as video or internet pages or any other multi-media that you want to someday add to your decks be done sooner than later. I wound up spending many hours updating my decks, and wished I had just done it right the first time through. It was worth it though.

I’ve also found that I can go a lot longer in one sitting by toggling decks. One of my decks requires very deep thought is used not so much to memorize as to train patterns of thought (this is one of the more arcane uses, barely mentioned in the list on supermemo). That deck taxes me greatly, but by toggling onto another deck after so many minutes, I can then toggle back and continue. This transition is seamless.

I have a hunch that the length of time a person is able to go with their reviews is related to two things: 1. development - experts recommend timeout disciplines at around 1 minute duration per year of age of child, for example…, BUT… 2. training, early learning kids tend to have greater attention spans than the average for a reason.

Through training or natural development, a child can increase the length of time using spaced repetition, or any other type of study method including reading, etc.

Breaking mental memorization tasks into chunks throughout the day is a very tried and true method. A repetition spaced a minute apart will not work the same as repetition spaced 3 hours apart. Doman incorporates this idea into his suggestions (doing the EK cards a minute at a time, but spacing them throughout the day). I believe this is a great way that H is using it (morning and night) and allows the newer content to be reviewed prior to bedtime (sleep being a nice ingredient to forming a memory).

That’s my 2 cents. will be eager to read further updates down the road!

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The Shaping Reading Brains approach asks early years teachers to do little and often. Much of the work happens alongside day to day activities in the early years- eg when lining up to wash hands, playing in the sand. Around 10 minutes would be spent with all children together- but most is in small groups- short, 2 or 3 minute blasts - that are fun!! Much of the info we are ‘programming’ into their brains happens without them having to say anything -although the approach develops oral abilities We start from speech- to develop reading brains- changing the way in which they understand and process speech sounds- helping them identifythe smaller parts (phonemes) so that they understand WHY we use print as we do, to represent speech sounds. ut the idea is the same as you are suggesting- little and often- working with specific parts of the brain- and developing the brains ability to do much more!!

So although the principle isnt the same- ie we do NOT encourage parents to ask children to memorise whole words- children WONT need to memorize sight words (they can only retain a few tousand anyway so not worth it) as this approach helps children utilize the brain to actually work out print more easily.

We very much support Dr Tallal’s work- Children of the Code- and resources eg FastForWord- which uses the latest research into brain pasticity to help ANY child read and spell - developing reading brains. If you are interested in neuroscience it may be worth taking a look at her work

At Read Australia we are developing early intervention programs along these lines- to prevent difficulties- and teach as if ALL will have these difficulties. This prevents difficulties for those who would have had difficulties- and helps those who find it easy simple fly !!

http://www.ncas.rutgers.edu/paula-tallal

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Hi ReadingWhisperer–I’ll certainly look into the things you mention, but you should be aware that I am not using or advocating the use of spaced repetition for learning to read. We might add some such feature to ReadingBear.org (I’m discussing it with the programmer behind Supermemo, who it turns out I already knew!), but as Reading Bear is phonics-based, that feature would be phonics-based, too. I agree with you that children shouldn’t be asked to memorize whole words; I’m probably the biggest phonics advocate on BrillKids! My interest in this thread concerns methods to get a 6-year-old to remember various kinds of academic knowledge (he’s been able to read since he was two).

As you probably know, the “little and often” principle is (around here) closely associated with the work of Glenn Doman.

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You decided to have kids, and you have no patience. What’s wrong with this picture?

Hahah DadDude don’t worry not offended children have taught me a little more patience but not much.

I do love the Idea of spaced repitition!!! I certainly think that i will be doing it once miss S starts school.

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“If I thought there were a sure-fire way to give my son Super Memory, so that he remembered everything he read, I’d do that. But I don’t think there is such a method. There are techniques to make memorizing easier, but they take time. And I’m “right-brain” training as a baby might help, but I want to see data on that before I start spending a lot of time.”

Im not sure of the benefit of him remembering what he’s read for the sake of remembering it -at six- better to focus on understanding what hes read, and loving reading so he reads more- and can then process the information more quickly, and retain more…A desire to want to read and learn more is, in my opinion, most important…the foundation. The more he reads (varied types of course) the more he will be able to interpret the text, and also be able to then do complex comprehension activities. If its for retaining facts then there are some interesting techniques but at six my focus would be on interpretting the text and in developing oral abilities/ verbal intelligence .

I do find memory interesting - and especially how world champions do it! To remember names etc they will say not to try to remember the name- instead to find a story and association. For example they could be introduced to 50 people who will tell them their names. Instead of remembering the name they will look for a distinguishing feature- that will be there when they next see them (ie not a red sweater as they may not wear it next time!) - and make a clearly association. Fascinating. The only way I can now remember names! And when doing this type of activity with pre-school aged children- eg trying to remember what is on the tray - I then cover it- and they have to remember - we practice this. So they might have 5 objects- they create a story about them - and can remember all! eg they imagine themselves opening the gate wearing a hat, walking down the path with yellow daffodils to the left, finding a can of tuna on the doorstep and wondering ‘whos put that there?’ opening the door and finding Santa (to remember hat, daffodils, can of tuna, pic of Santa) Some of the children can remember 20 objects after having only 60 seconds to ‘memorize’ them!- and these are 4 year olds!!! Brain training is all a part of Shaping Reading Brains- because we’re really working on learning in general :slight_smile:

Em
ps I am not using or advocating the use of spaced repetition for learning to read either!!! Absolutely not. Phonological awareness and phonics (and the development of verbal intelligence) are the foundation for my approach ‘Shaping Reading Brains’- incase interested - http://youtu.be/w8sXFKXg1b4

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Em, one thing you should understand about me is that when I learn that something is widely accepted as a “best practice” or part of the background knowledge of a profession–a.k.a. it is the dogma of the field–then I take it as a reason to seriously think about it, but not necessarily to switch my thinking uncritically. If I believed the leading dogmas of education, I would not have tried to teach my son to read at age 22 months. I would also be a big fan of the project method, which I am not. Indeed you’ll find a lot of people on BrillKids Forums who are perfectly willing to flout the accepted wisdom. That’s one of the reasons I like it!

You’re not the first person to tell me that a child should not be memorizing, or doing so much academic work, at my son’s age. Indeed, much of your advice is perfectly familiar to me, and I’ve already thought quite a bit about it, and my views are, let’s just say, nuanced. In fact, navigating the issues involved in applying such advice to a specific case can be very complex. For example, our review sessions take about a half hour, all together, per day. The review is done separately from the books (it’s done in front of my computer; it could be done on an iPad), in two relatively brief but high-intensity sessions. Why think that such review sessions would turn him off to reading? He isn’t any less turned-off right now than he was before we started such reviews. He reads pretty enthusiastically for an hour (or more) a day every afternoon, and that’s in addition to the reading that I do to him during mealtimes (I work from home) and at bedtime.

I’m homeschooling my son personally (his mother does a little, too), which by the way guarantees that a lot of his time is self-directed. His language abilities are very precocious because I’ve read and explained a huge amount to him, and continue to do so, though he is slowly becoming independent in his ability to study (he studies Rosetta Stone Latin by himself, does his hour of chapter book reading alone, and often does math and writing assignments by himself). In most subjects I am reading stuff to him that is written for students years ahead of him. When reading by himself he chooses stuff a few years ahead of his age level. When it comes to chapter books (fiction), his vocabulary and comprehension are at a point where he can understand and like things like Little House on the Prairie and various easy chapter book adaptations of classics (lately, Sherlock Holmes and now Oliver Twist).

Now with that background, let’s consider the issue at hand: should a six-year-old be reading only for understanding, or also for memory as well? Well, we don’t do memorization of things he reads to himself (or only rarely–but I expect that to change as he matures to the point where he can write well-formulated and pertinent questions). But when we read science, history, and geography, as well as other non-fiction, factual subjects, our focus is on understanding and building up background knowledge. Why not? The summaries we did for three months (described earlier in this thread), together with the Q&A spaced repetition review we’ve done for the last month, are definitely effortful. Sometimes–not most days, but occasionally–he resists and I have to insist. But he seems to understand and appreciate the benefits and wisdom of reviewing questions. It’s not like it’s an unpleasant activity, on balance, any more than any other part of his education.

My central argument is this. First, consider an obvious but today oft-overlooked point, namely that the purpose of reading nonfiction is first and foremost to acquaint oneself with facts. Next consider that, without any sort of practice, drilling, or other kind of review, one will forget the vast majority of the facts one encounters in one’s reading. This entails that doing nonfiction reading without any review is literally pointless–it barely repays itself. (No wonder so many people look anti-intellectual in their attitude toward book-reading.) Suppose there were a way to retain memory of selected facts with a 95% chance of recall, and suppose doing this required a half-hour per day. This is much more efficient and much less arduous than the usual school methods of worksheets, passive review of everything, and cramming for exams. I happen to agree with you that those methods would be too much to require of most six-year-olds. But spaced repetition work for a half-hour per day is much more reasonable, and not really that much to ask, as our experience so far bears out. It also puts my mind at ease about the problem of forgetting what we read.

This argument assumes that “the purpose of reading nonfiction is first and foremost to acquaint oneself with facts,” and your (Em’s) point, that the purpose of reading at least in early years should be simply a focus on language, seemed to be contrary. But my contention is supported by research, and we might not be contradicting each other, besides. Specialized factual knowledge, what is sometimes called “background information,” arguably count as language skills. You can’t read advanced physics stuff, for example, without reading basic physics stuff first, and getting lots of vocabulary and basic facts under your belt; no amount of “generic” language skill enables a physics-ignorant student to read advanced physics. Hence some memory of facts actually counts as “verbal intelligence.” (E.D. Hirsch develops something like this argument in Cultural Literacy with an impressive amount of research to back him up. More recently, Willingham explained the same thing in Why Don’t Students Like School with more recent research.)

Em, you might not have intended to get into an argument, but since I learn a lot by arguing, you’ve got one! :biggrin:

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Absolutely- arguing with an open mind expands the mind!

There are a lot of points here that you are assuming (of my stance) that are incorrect - eg that I am advocating for something that is widely accepted as ‘best practice’. If it was then our children wouldnt be in the situation there are. My point was the what most believe is ‘best practice’ is NOT in the best interests of our children. And if they didnt believe it to be best practice why use it? So my posts (see new thread about the Reading Whisperer approach) are speaking out about what is widely used!!! Instead I am urging people to think about what really is best practice regardless of ingrained beliefs. And when we look at brain plasticity research etc we see alot more about what is actually happening in the brain to response to certain ‘training’. We can now see brain imaging studies- looking at how poor readers brains can be changed- to function as good readers. The children who learn easily no matter what we do arent really of interest to me- my area of interest are the others. And thats alot of children! So until we really look at how we can best help these children- who have very similar difficulties- then we cant really assume what ‘best practice’ is.
Parents often advocate for whatever they used with their own child- if it worked- but I am interested in those who dont and in preventing this. To prevent it we need to get in early- and so my stance is that we should be educating and empowering parents so they use what is likely to be the best approach (not program or method) even if they dont know yet how their child’s brain works. In most cases parents and teachers follow what theyve done - that works with other children. Then they think the child just needs to do it more often, or that they have special needs etc… but actually they dont have a brain that processes this easily- and need to be taught in specific ways (usually to develop phonological - and especially phonemic- awareness)

I am a big fan of the Dr Paula Tallal etc. - and Im unusual in that Im not just fascinated by research but Ive actually been teaching children for 20 years and as I said on another thread, many children have suffered because of my learning journey. I look back now and realise I could have done things better for that child, now that I know more- not just about the ‘what’ to teach but the ‘how’ to teach it - to the many different learning styles, interests, personalities etc of my students. One of the most important concepts I grasp now is that we need to focus on oral language first- in the early years- in a specific way- as a way to prevent reading and spelling difficulties - and that we can identify these ‘non reading’ brains early- the brains with that potential if we DONT do certain things. Thats not every child of course- but its the children who need this in order to develop reading brains that I am interested in. Because we are on the whole failing these children in English speaking countries, miserably. As was shown on another post non-English speaking countries can often be seen to teach English in the ‘non’ widely accepted ways- no teaching of letter names or sight word memorising etc. Infact many refugees coming into Australia outperform Australian students (there was an interesting article about it in the Australian not so long ago)

I am definitely flouting the widely accepted wisdom - see my posts and how they have been criticised - because I am not agreeing with their methods. Widely accepted ideas are NOT what most reading scientists tell us! Or government reports…But society continues to ingore them because they go against their own belief system. Instead I look to what actually changes brains- I look to the latest research - combined with what Im am learning from teaching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhkT_DIuVp8

Im actually not disagreeing Im saying they could be even better…prevent more difficulties and confusion- children could have learnt more quickly - and with more curiosity and more of an intrinsic motivation to self-discover. You mention a child being self-directed- this as at the heart of my approach! Id love for more parents to learn more so more children could be home schooled (effectively)

You also mention that on occasion you insist he does things- so you may have an internal dilema going on there between the path you want for him and the path he may actually want. A struggle we all have…:slight_smile: I am also hoping that you have as much interest in him developing social and emotional intelligence - with children of his own age…again the dilema of home schooling. A different discussion…

You say that my belief is that the purpose of reading in the early years should simply be a focus on language - I have never said that. I have said that the foundation is developing oral abilities - especially phonological awareness- so that they can understand print (through phonics) more quickly and easily.
Scientific learning is at the centre of my approach- not widely accepted beliefs:-)

http://youtu.be/QsSUamFekwI

And if you watch the video link I sent you youll see that I actually point out that we wouldnt teach a mathematical theory and ask them to just memorise it - we would teach them the underlying principles so they understand it.

Its here again
http://youtu.be/w8sXFKXg1b4

Great to have such an interesting discussion - thank you! If you read my posts youll see that we are actually very much on the same page. However with my female brain the focus for me with children is just as much on the emotional part for the child- and in their emotional resillience and ‘life skills’ etc as the academic outcome.

Em

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Hi Em, Loved the point about teaching the underlying priciples. As a child and still today as an adult I am able to pick things up quicker and more likely keep them in my long tearm memory if I know the hows and the whys behind things. I’m wired up that way. In my case I really enjoyed maths in school until I had a really incompetent teacher in grade 9 who actaully wasn’t a maths teacher. He couldn’t tell my why and how things worked and I went from being a straight A student in Maths to a D student. I found most students where happy being told that this is what works and this is what we use but I wonder if they every retained any of that knowledge for the long term.

The other thing that hindered me retaining things for the long term was teachers saying silly things when students asked if they were ever going to use what they learn in a real life situation. I even recall in primary school teachers replying that no they will never used it in a real life. If only the teacher took time to realise that math skills and commuincation skill are so important if you want to be sucessfull in so many different areas of your life.

Daddude I know for me something like spaced repetion (especailly for the subjects I loved) would have helped me to retain information beyond exams. I never truely studdied even at university and retained enough information to pass (in subjects I wasn’t really interested in) and sometimes even achive high marks (in subjects that I really loved) in an exam. But ask me about it now 5 years down the track and I wouldn’t have a single clue. On the other hand ask me about the books that I own in my library and I would be able to give you detailed information simply because I read them approximately once a year. The ones that i received in childhood and haven’t read for a few years would be the same.

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I’ll be brief because I am on the ipad.
I didnt read this thread until now and found it highly interesting.Thank you, daddude for starting it and for letting us learn from your experience. May I ask for an update on how you are doing and if H’s Retention of the reading content has risen as much as you hoped for?

Thanks in advance

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OK, here’s a report!

I love Supermemo. Although we didn’t study so much over the summer, we continued to do Supermemo review daily. During summer we stopped adding questions and tried to get the daily commitment down to something manageable, but then about a month ago I decided to upgrade to the latest Supermemo which enabled us to put questions in priority order and “postpone” any items that are left over. So now we review 40-50 questions per day, no more. Now we’re adding lots of questions every day, 10-15 per day I guess. We now have over 1,000 questions in the database, and according to Supermemo’s statistics, he has 92% retention of this material. It used to be 95%, but went down after we started using the priority+postponing feature. This is to be expected: if you increase the amount of material in the database more than you can effectively memorize, your retention rate will drop. But I say it’s better to have 90% retention of virtually all the material we want to retain than 95% retention of only a very modest amount of material. The most difficult part of the priority+postponing feature has been going back and prioritizing ~800 old items. I still have 400-500 items to prioritize. But it’s really a great system–works excellently. We almost always review the stuff that I think is important, and we do eventually get around to less important stuff.

We’ve added questions from two new sources. Beginning this new school year, H. has been reading (to himself, during his hour-long reading period) Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island, the originals, without much complaint and even with a bit of enthusiasm. But since these are quite advanced, of course he doesn’t know quite a bit of the vocabulary. So I sit him down with my iPad, with the dictionary app open (and a stern warning not to open any other apps), and he looks up words he doesn’t know. Afterwards, sometimes (only 1/3 or 1/2 of the time) I mine his words looked up for items to add to Supermemo. He has memorized a few dozen vocab items that way. Another thing he does now is read to himself nonfiction a half-hour and sometimes a full hour, in addition. This is because I am now using mealtimes to read to baby E., not H. Since I have no time to read and analyze this nonfiction material for him, I have him make questions after he’s done reading. He ends up making far too many questions, half of them being about trivia that he needn’t memorize, but half of them being perfectly fine. This is also an excellent way to get him to think about what he has just read. I type in a selection of his questions and I think he enjoys seeing material that he read to himself.

This has made it possible for him to read and learn a lot from various books about the human body (his latest “what I want to be when I grow up” is a doctor). We got the entire “Horrible Science” series in a box, $50 or so for 3000+ pages (http://www.amazon.com/Bulging-Box-Books-Horrible-Science/dp/1407110357), which looks great and he’s been reading them just for fun quite a bit. It has a lot about the human body, about 5 books relevant. Very much a boy’s series of books. Anyway, sometimes he makes questions about those, but more often his questions are from the “True Books” we got.

In just the last week we switched from one long review, which was cutting into evening reading time, to three short reviews, before breakfast, after lunch, and before bedtime reading, each session 15 questions in 7.5 minutes. Often we do more than 15 which is good. Timing the review sessions keeps H. on track–otherwise he gets distracted. 7.5 minutes turns out to be an excellent review length: long enough to do a substantial amount, short enough to seem, well, short. Occasionally we’ve done 10 minutes three times a day but that seems like a little too much.

H. can do review by himself, although I don’t usually ask him to. I’m fairly confident that when E. is ready to start Supermemo, when he’s 4 or 5 or so I guess (I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with H. before age 5), then H will be 9 or 10, and I think he’ll be able to take over all aspects, question-writing and review. I’ll be sad because I won’t be able to learn everything H. is learning. I’m learning a lot too!

Occasionally H. resists review, but not as much as in the past. Doing it three times a day has made him even more amenable. He is often quite enthusiastic about adding questions and requests that questions be made out of this or that.

One excellent side-benefit of this system is that there is now an easy way to get H. to solidify his memory of all the little pieces of background information: time, measurements, directions, family birth dates, etc. We also use it to solidify his memory of things like skip counting by 3s, 4s, and 6s, and the random addition or multiplication fact that just isn’t sticking.

The bottom line: H. really is learning a lot. If we keep it up, then I am convinced that with significant time investment and support from me, in the first years of doing it, he’s going to know boatloads about everything by the time he is 10. He’ll have memorized zillions of facts he has studied about every period of history, every branch of science, geography, math, grammar, etc.

Reading Bear’s benefactor is very interested in adding a spaced repetition feature to Reading Bear. This will take money and time so I don’t know when you might see it.

H. is no longer reviewing recordings…it just occupies too much time and we couldn’t fit it in along with the Supermemo review.

End of brain dump!

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Thanks for the brain dump!!!

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Thank you so much, dadDude! You get me motivated for looking into supermemo which at first didnt seem so attractive when you remarked you had to read long manuals and did a bit of research by yourself. I contacted them and they said they offer an iphone app and plan on launching their ipad app in the 4th quarter 2012 - is anybody using this and can share his/her opinion of it please? Thanks

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daddude do you use window version of super memo ?? or ipad ??
viv

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I had been waiting to bump this thread once Reading Bear was completed, but decided to give you extra time… lol

It’s great to read these updates, I mean really really great. I have absolutely no doubt that H’s learning is accelerating and will be far advanced from where he would have been without. Thanks again & keep up the great efforts!

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@PokerDad - thanks!

@viv, we use the Windows version. The problem with the iPad version is that (as far as I could tell, last time I looked) there is no way to export your (all-important!) data from the iPad app to the desktop app. It’s very annoying. I really like Piotr, the Supermemo guy, but if he doesn’t want to do something (like make the program more user-friendly), he doesn’t do it! But maybe they’ll fix that. Anyway, for now, even though I would much prefer to use my iPad, I’m using the desktop.

Besides, when you get down to it, you’d have to have the software & the app accessing your data “in the cloud.” There’d be no other way to make it work, because you constantly have to be at the keyboard, and I don’t want to input questions using the iPad. There are also lots of features of the software that I use that I’m pretty sure I couldn’t use on the iPad. Maybe we’ll do it by accessing my desktop via my iPad, with one of those programs that lets you do that, but…nah, the desktop has to be on and not sleeping, and to ensure that, we’ll already be at the computer. So…

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Thought I might give the thread a little bump in hopes to know how H’s memorization is coming along. In particular, I’m wondering if you’ve noticed his retention beginning to influence further uptake, or stated another way, if he’s learning faster than he was before. I’d also be curious if you’ve noticed any other ancillary benefits