Another Anki Thread

[TheAttachedMama]

Hi Everyone!

 

Up until now we have been using playlists in itunes to review memory work.   However, our review time is starting to take FOREVER as we add additional memory work.  Plus, my kids sort of passively listen instead of really memorizing the stuff.  SO I finally broke down and downloaded Anki.  

My hope is that this will shorten our review time each day---or at the very least make it more efficient.

 

I've spent the past hour searching the web and reading old WTM forum posts on anki.   I can not find the answers to my questions, so I decided to start my own thread.

 

My questions are:

 

1)  What is the best way to set it up for multiple children on one computer?   I read on the forums that each child should have their own deck even if the material is exactly the same.  I also read that all subjects should go into that one deck...and that it doesn't matter if there are a lot of cards in that deck.   Is that still the agreed best way to set it up?  And I just want to confirm that separate decks will allow each child targeted review?   (My oldest son memorizes easily.   My middle daughter struggles with memorizing.  So their review will look very differently.) 

 

2)   Does anyone use Anki with Classical Conversations or something similar?  It seems like most people use Anki to review vocabulary and very short things. MOST of our memory work is very long.   History sentences, lists, poems, etc.   What is the best way to review these long things?  Do you add any of the CC songs to your Anki flashcards? 

2a)  How do you handle the CC timeline with Anki?  I don't want to forget to review this. 

 

3)  Is there a way to set up Anki so there is a max number of cards reviewed per day?   I hate feeling behind.  :)  (It is a personality thing.)   Can I set up Anki so that it only gives us a max number of cards per day even if we miss several days due to sickness or vacation?   Does that defeat the purpose? 

 

4)  I want to pre-enter ALL of my new memory work for the year now.   But I only want to introduce about 2-3 new things per week.   What is the best way to do this?  I think it has something to do with suspending the cards maybe? 

 

5)  What is your parent maintenance time per week?   If you pre-enter everything, how much time per week do you spend messing with activating cards and the like?  When I enter the cards, should I do something special with the tags to make my maintenance activities easier?  I know I should probably tag each card with the subject?  Do I also tag each card with the week number or something?   Give me your best tips.  :)

 

6)  Assuming your child has LOTS of cards and longer memory work, how long does review take per day?

 

7)  My oldest child is dyslexic and I know he will struggle with reading some of the cards on his own.  (The science vocabulary in his lists can be quite challenging to decode!)  What tips do you have for making his review as independent as possible?   I am thinking the use of audio files might help.   Maybe I can record an mp3 of me reading the card to him?

 

8)  Spelling?

Because he is is dyslexic, he does not do well spelling orally.  He needs to write the word and see it in order to spell it.  Should I just keep a white board by our computer?   And how do I set up a flashcard to ASK a word without showing its spelling?

 

Thanks everyone!

Cathy aka The Compulsive List Maker  :)

[Miss Tick]

I'm new to using Anki and still investigating, here are my thoughts.

 

1) I have a different "profile" for each of my kids. That way they each get more practice with the particular cards they struggle with. When I add cards, I make a deck called "new" then expert it and import it into each profile. I then add all those cards to the main deck for each person. That way I'm not overwriting the individual's data.

 

2) sorry, no experience with CC.

 

3) I know you can limit the max number of new cards a day, I don't remember if there is a similar limit for new cards, I'm not on a real computer right now.

 

4) I think you are right about "suspend" I haven't tried it. Sometimes the number of "new"cards is set to 0, then increases for a day to introduce new cards, then back to 0 for a while?

 

5) can't help here, sorry. Although, my time is less than 15 minutes a week, but we are just using it for Latin vocabulary.

 

6) if our review time gets longer than 10 or 15 minutes I will have to revisit it

 

7) & 8) mp3s look easy, but I haven't tried them yet.

 

 

My questions are:

 

1) What is the best way to set it up for multiple children on one computer? I read on the forums that each child should have their own deck even if the material is exactly the same. I also read that all subjects should go into that one deck...and that it doesn't matter if there are a lot of cards in that deck. Is that still the agreed best way to set it up? And I just want to confirm that separate decks will allow each child targeted review? (My oldest son memorizes easily. My middle daughter struggles with memorizing. So their review will look very differently.)

 

2) Does anyone use Anki with Classical Conversations or something similar? It seems like most people use Anki to review vocabulary and very short things. MOST of our memory work is very long. History sentences, lists, poems, etc. What is the best way to review these long things? Do you add any of the CC songs to your Anki flashcards?

2a) How do you handle the CC timeline with Anki? I don't want to forget to review this.

 

3) Is there a way to set up Anki so there is a max number of cards reviewed per day? I hate feeling behind. :) (It is a personality thing.) Can I set up Anki so that it only gives us a max number of cards per day even if we miss several days due to sickness or vacation? Does that defeat the purpose?

 

4) I want to pre-enter ALL of my new memory work for the year now. But I only want to introduce about 2-3 new things per week. What is the best way to do this? I think it has something to do with suspending the cards maybe?

 

5) What is your parent maintenance time per week? If you pre-enter everything, how much time per week do you spend messing with activating cards and the like? When I enter the cards, should I do something special with the tags to make my maintenance activities easier? I know I should probably tag each card with the subject? Do I also tag each card with the week number or something? Give me your best tips. :)

 

6) Assuming your child has LOTS of cards and longer memory work, how long does review take per day?

 

7) My oldest child is dyslexic and I know he will struggle with reading some of the cards on his own. (The science vocabulary in his lists can be quite challenging to decode!) What tips do you have for making his review as independent as possible? I am thinking the use of audio files might help. Maybe I can record an mp3 of me reading the card to him?

 

8) Spelling?

Because he is is dyslexic, he does not do well spelling orally. He needs to write the word and see it in order to spell it. Should I just keep a white board by our computer? And how do I set up a flashcard to ASK a word without showing its spelling?

 

Thanks everyone!

Cathy aka The Compulsive List Maker :)

[Syllieann]

2. I use Anki with cc memory. We spend 2 weeks for each set. On the first week we just work on the memory stuff together. Then I "enter" (un-suspend: see below) it into Anki and the second week is used for review. For map work, I enter the map number and the places to be located. I read the locations off the Anki card and Ds points them out on the actual physical map. I assess his answers and the click the appropriate button.

 

2a. I split our timeline into four parts. Beta timeline is the cue (or alpha, whatever), then that 1/4 of the timeline is the other side of the card.

 

3. I'm not sure if you can set up max review. I will cut it off after 10 minutes and just close the computer program even if there are cards in cue. They just readjust when you reopen the program.

 

4. I enter everything at once, then set them all to suspend. As we work through our material, I take them off suspend and they enter the active deck. The database is searchable, so I just enter a keyword to find the card I need. For example, "columbus" or "atomic weight".

 

5. For just cc memory I probably spend 2 minutes per week fussing with marking cards. This is after I've pre-entered everything. We spend 10 min per day reviewing Anki, max. Many days it is less than this.

 

7. You can record the audio, but I would probably just do it with him. I use Anki to manage the review spacing, but if I left Ds to do it independently, he would not catch errors on longer pieces of memory work. We have whole poems in there. if he substituted a for the in the poem, he would not realize it by the time he read the answer.

[Tranquility7]

Anki, Anki, Anki!!! Ahh, how I LOVE Anki! I don't have any time now, but I promise I will be back with lots of comments based on how we have used Anki extensively over the last 3.5 years. It is our homeschool secret weapon, and I am becoming an Anki Evangelist  :-)

[Kuovonne]

Another long time Anki user here.

 

Multiple children:

You can have either one deck per child, or you can have a separate profile for each child.

I recommend having different profiles.

 

Multiple decks per child:

In general it is better to have everything in one deck. One exception is foreign language vocabulary.

I like having a separate deck for foreign language since it is better to not have to mentally shift subjects so much with foreign languages.

 

Using Anki with CC:

We don't do CC, but we did Classically Catholic Memory, which is very similar.

I didn't put any of the audio in Anki, I saved that for the car.

The long passages are easy to put in Anki if you make cloze cards and give hints.

For long passages, I prefer to teach them using the app RememberMe, and then

rely on Anki for retention. (RememberMe is *amazing* for learning long passages.)

 

Anki with the Timeline:

The timeline was tricky. I made flashcard with one event as the prompt and the next

5 or so cards as the answer. I made the cards overlap.

 

Maximum cards:

Yes, it is possible to set up both the maximum number of cards per deck,

and the number of new cards per day. It is not possible to set a maximum

number of cards across all decks, another reason to keep everything in the same deck.

 

Missing Days:

I highly recommend not skipping days, even on vacation or sick days.

We use the mobile app to make reviewing easy, no matter where we are.

Once you have 50 or so cards to review per day, the cards really add up if

you miss a day.

 

Pre-entering Cards:

I highly recommend this. Enter all your cards at once. There are two ways of

starting new cards. (1) You can suspend all the cards, and then unsuspend them

as you want to start them. (2) You can set the number of new cards to 0, and then

reschedule cards as you want to start them. I have done both ways, and both work

fine. Do add tags or new fields for things like the subject and week so that you can

easily search. Also learn how to type your cards in a text file and import them as a batch.

 

Maintence:

I have practically no maintence on a regular basis, just starting new cards.

 

Time to review:

At one point my kids had thousands of cards in their decks. It took them 10-15 minutes

to review them. Later, I decided that it wasn't worth it and dumped most of the system. Then

more recently I started a more targeted use of Anki and it is going well (so far).

 

Dyslexic:

You could read the cards to your child and have him answer orally.

It is possible to have Anki read the cards through the text to speech fuction,

but I haven't tried it, and I found reading the cards to my child easier.

 

Spelling:

I set it up so that none of the answers are typed. The kids answer the cards orally

(or mentally) and then click the answer. I think that it is a waste of time to type answers.

 

 

*******

Some more tips:

Learn how to make your own custom cards.

 

Cloze cards are extremely powerful, especially for memorizing long passages.

 

Once you get the a hang of it you can make cards with three or more sides, which can be very useful at times.

 

In your custom cards, add a field for the child's name. Display the child's name at the top of each card.

That way it is easy to tell if you accidently open the wrong child's deck.

 

Hide the time until the next card on the answer buttons. It is easier to decide if the card was hard, good, or easy

when you don't see the times. Otherwise, it is too easy to second guess yourself.

 

Sit with your child at first and explain what hard, good, and easy mean. One of my kids wanted to

say everything was easy at first.

 

Anki is desiged for about 90% retetion, not 100%. Expect to do some cramming just before going

for Memory Master.

 

I *highly* recommend the app. The Android one is free. The iOS one is expesive ($25).

I have never regreted paying for the iOS app.

*****

[TheAttachedMama]

Thanks to everyone for the replies.   I have made it my mission to try to figure out Anki this weekend and input everything so we can start on Monday.  

 

I keep hearing everyone say that you can make multiple profiles.   I can not for the life of me figure out how to do that.   I am going to try to read through the help files some more and figure it out. 

Using Anki with CC:
We don't do CC, but we did Classically Catholic Memory, which is very similar.
I didn't put any of the audio in Anki, I saved that for the car.
The long passages are easy to put in Anki if you make cloze cards and give hints.
For long passages, I prefer to teach them using the app RememberMe, and then
rely on Anki for retention. (RememberMe is *amazing* for learning long passages.)

Anki with the Timeline:
The timeline was tricky. I made flashcard with one event as the prompt and the next
5 or so cards as the answer. I made the cards overlap.

Maximum cards:
Yes, it is possible to set up both the maximum number of cards per deck,
and the number of new cards per day. It is not possible to set a maximum
number of cards across all decks, another reason to keep everything in the same deck.

Missing Days:
I highly recommend not skipping days, even on vacation or sick days.
We use the mobile app to make reviewing easy, no matter where we are.
Once you have 50 or so cards to review per day, the cards really add up if
you miss a day.

Pre-entering Cards:
I highly recommend this. Enter all your cards at once. There are two ways of
starting new cards. (1) You can suspend all the cards, and then unsuspend them
as you want to start them. (2) You can set the number of new cards to 0, and then
reschedule cards as you want to start them. I have done both ways, and both work
fine. Do add tags or new fields for things like the subject and week so that you can
easily search. Also learn how to type your cards in a text file and import them as a batch.

Maintence:
I have practically no maintence on a regular basis, just starting new cards.

Time to review:
At one point my kids had thousands of cards in their decks. It took them 10-15 minutes
to review them. Later, I decided that it wasn't worth it and dumped most of the system. Then
more recently I started a more targeted use of Anki and it is going well (so far).

Dyslexic:
You could read the cards to your child and have him answer orally.
It is possible to have Anki read the cards through the text to speech fuction,
but I haven't tried it, and I found reading the cards to my child easier.

Spelling:
I set it up so that none of the answers are typed. The kids answer the cards orally
(or mentally) and then click the answer. I think that it is a waste of time to type answers.


*******
Some more tips:
Learn how to make your own custom cards.

Cloze cards are extremely powerful, especially for memorizing long passages.

Once you get the a hang of it you can make cards with three or more sides, which can be very useful at times.

In your custom cards, add a field for the child's name. Display the child's name at the top of each card.
That way it is easy to tell if you accidently open the wrong child's deck.

Hide the time until the next card on the answer buttons. It is easier to decide if the card was hard, good, or easy
when you don't see the times. Otherwise, it is too easy to second guess yourself.

Sit with your child at first and explain what hard, good, and easy mean. One of my kids wanted to
say everything was easy at first.

Anki is desiged for about 90% retetion, not 100%. Expect to do some cramming just before going
for Memory Master.

I *highly* recommend the app. The Android one is free. The iOS one is expesive ($25).
I have never regreted paying for the iOS app.
*****

 

Thanks so much for the reply!   I am going to check out the app RememberMe now.  :)  Isn't technology wonderful?!

 

I'm still unclear about the maximum number of cards per day setting.  

So, under options, under the review tab, I have the max number of cards set to 15.  

Does this mean that it will only ever ask me to review 15 cards per day?   What if we miss a week?  When I open Anki back up, will it still only give me 15 cards each day?  I may change that number if 15 is too low.   But I am just not sure what it does.  I also know (realistically) we will not be doing Anki on the weekends.   When my husband is home, it is REALLY hard to get the kids to stick to any type of routine.   Will Anki still work if it is a "school day" type thing?  I sure to hope it isn't an all or nothing thing.  (Although I know, of course, that more review is always better.  I just hope to strike some sort of balance.)

 

Also, how does Anki know what is a new card?  Currently all of my cards are suspended.   I assume that when I unsuspend a card it will mark it as new automatically.   Is that correct?  So if I unsuspend 4 cards, but have the number of new cards per day set to 1, it will only introduce 1 of the newly unsuspended cards per day.   Is that right?

 

Also, can anyone explain to me what the "steps in minutes" setting does under options??   What do you suggest that I set that too?  Currently it is set to the default setting of "1 10".   I think that the 1 means that it will ask me the card again in 1 minute if I press again.   What does the 10 mean? 

 

Finally, I still can't picture how to enter a spelling card.  What do you put on the front of the card and the back?   I can't put the word because then they would know how to spell the word.  :) :)  (Obviously)

[Syllieann]

we don't do it on weekends or holidays. On Monday, it will serve up Saturday's cards first, then Sunday, etc. sometimes we complete the piled up cards within 10 minutes. Other times it will exceed ten minutes, so I shut it off and those cards are popped first on Tuesday.

[scoutingmom]

 

 

Hi Everyone!

 

Up until now we have been using playlists in itunes to review memory work. However, our review time is starting to take FOREVER as we add additional memory work. Plus, my kids sort of passively listen instead of really memorizing the stuff. SO I finally broke down and downloaded Anki.

My hope is that this will shorten our review time each day---or at the very least make it more efficient.

 

I've spent the past hour searching the web and reading old WTM forum posts on anki. I can not find the answers to my questions, so I decided to start my own thread.

 

My questions are:

 

1) What is the best way to set it up for multiple children on one computer? I read on the forums that each child should have their own deck even if the material is exactly the same. I also read that all subjects should go into that one deck...and that it doesn't matter if there are a lot of cards in that deck. Is that still the agreed best way to set it up? And I just want to confirm that separate decks will allow each child targeted review? (My oldest son memorizes easily. My middle daughter struggles with memorizing. So their review will look very differently.)

 

2) Does anyone use Anki with Classical Conversations or something similar? It seems like most people use Anki to review vocabulary and very short things. MOST of our memory work is very long. History sentences, lists, poems, etc. What is the best way to review these long things? Do you add any of the CC songs to your Anki flashcards?

2a) How do you handle the CC timeline with Anki? I don't want to forget to review this.

 

3) Is there a way to set up Anki so there is a max number of cards reviewed per day? I hate feeling behind. :) (It is a personality thing.) Can I set up Anki so that it only gives us a max number of cards per day even if we miss several days due to sickness or vacation? Does that defeat the purpose?

 

4) I want to pre-enter ALL of my new memory work for the year now. But I only want to introduce about 2-3 new things per week. What is the best way to do this? I think it has something to do with suspending the cards maybe?

 

5) What is your parent maintenance time per week? If you pre-enter everything, how much time per week do you spend messing with activating cards and the like? When I enter the cards, should I do something special with the tags to make my maintenance activities easier? I know I should probably tag each card with the subject? Do I also tag each card with the week number or something? Give me your best tips. :)

 

6) Assuming your child has LOTS of cards and longer memory work, how long does review take per day?

 

7) My oldest child is dyslexic and I know he will struggle with reading some of the cards on his own. (The science vocabulary in his lists can be quite challenging to decode!) What tips do you have for making his review as independent as possible? I am thinking the use of audio files might help. Maybe I can record an mp3 of me reading the card to him?

 

8) Spelling?

Because he is is dyslexic, he does not do well spelling orally. He needs to write the word and see it in order to spell it. Should I just keep a white board by our computer? And how do I set up a flashcard to ASK a word without showing its spelling?

 

Thanks everyone!

Cathy aka The Compulsive List Maker :)

1. I use profiles. To create a new profile, click on Switch Profiles.... there will be a 'new' button on the window. I have a 'master deck' profile that I do all edits in. I import the decks to my kids' decks when appropriate.

 

I do have multiple decks for kids. I have an All About Spelling Deck, a Scripture deck, a Science deck, etc. Also, make good use of tags to mark chapters or lessons, etc.

 

2. No

 

3. You can set a maximum new cards, and maximum reviews, but it is best not to get behind. There are various suggestions to catch up if you do get behind... the most basic is to review a set amount of time each day.... there are other methods....

 

4. Yes, enter all now if you can. I suspend cards, then unsuspend when ready. So for things like spelling, I use the tags to unsuspend all the cards for a lesson/chapter at a time. For scriptures, I unsuspend a new one when I feel they are ready for one.

 

5. It doesn't take long generally, except for making the cards to start. As I mentioned, use tags for subjects and chapters etc.

 

6. Varies

 

7. There is TTS built in, I think.... I haven't used it. You can attach mp3's. I think there are add-ons for this too.

 

8. Well, our AAS cards I do the cards.... so it shows me the word, I say it, and he spells it, and I correct it. But you can have a card with no text on the front, just an mp3......

 

Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk

[Kuovonne]

I keep hearing everyone say that you can make multiple profiles. I can not for the life of me figure out how to do that. I am going to try to read through the help files some more and figure it out.

The profiles screen is the very first screen that shows up when I launch Anki.

Maybe your version is different?

 

I'm still unclear about the maximum number of cards per day setting.

So, under options, under the review tab, I have the max number of cards set to 15.

Does this mean that it will only ever ask me to review 15 cards per day? What if we miss a week? When I open Anki back up, will it still only give me 15 cards each day? I may change that number if 15 is too low.

If you set the maximum number of cards to 15, you will only ever see 15 cards per day

for that deck. If you have a backlog of 100+ cards, you will still see only 15.

15 cards per day is much too low. Depending on how old your kids are,

25 - 50 might be better. Remember, most cards are supposed to be just memory joggers,

so if it takes more than a few seconds to remember most things, you might want to preteach

the material or introduce new material slower.

 

Will Anki still work if it is a "school day" type thing? I sure to hope it isn't an all or nothing thing. (Although I know, of course, that more review is always better. I just hope to strike some sort of balance.)

Yes, Anki works even if it is only a "school day" thing. Mondays will have more cards to

review than other days. Also expect a very large backlog if you take off for a week or more.

 

Also, how does Anki know what is a new card? Currently all of my cards are suspended. I assume that when I unsuspend a card it will mark it as new automatically. Is that correct? So if I unsuspend 4 cards, but have the number of new cards per day set to 1, it will only introduce 1 of the newly unsuspended cards per day. Is that right?

You are right. A new card is any card that has been entered and is not suspended, but is not scheduled for review. If the number of new cards is 1, it will only show 1 new card per day.

You can search for new cards using "is:new" in the search box.

 

Also, can anyone explain to me what the "steps in minutes" setting does under options?? What do you suggest that I set that too? Currently it is set to the default setting of "1 10". I think that the 1 means that it will ask me the card again in 1 minute if I press again. What does the 10 mean?

New cards get special treatment when they are started. They are treated as "learning" cards

and have a step increment in how long until you see them again that is different from the regular

algorithm. The good and easy buttons also act differently. You can look it up in the documentation,

or just go with the defaults and trust the system. There is so much to learn with Anki that I suggest the latter.

 

Finally, I still can't picture how to enter a spelling card. What do you put on the front of the card and the back? I can't put the word because then they would know how to spell the word. :) :) (Obviously)

For my spelling deck, I look at the cards and dictate them to my kid. It is actually fairly quick,

and I like being able to coach my child through the spelling while clicking "again" behind the scenes. (I use AnkiMobile on my phone where she can't see the screen.)

If you really want to automate spelling with Anki, you will have to make a custom card type

and add an audio field that you play on the front of the card, and the spelling on the back.

I would recommend recording your voice instead of relying on the text to speech for spelling words,

especially when you have homonyms.

[Tranquility7]

(Edited because I posted accidentally and my numbers were all wonky and I hadn't yet attached my review time graphs!)

 

Ok, finally a bit of time to post on this now....

 

I adore Anki and our homeschool thrives on the fabulous regular reviewing we can achieve through it. Even my DS9 thinks it is GREAT and has told me twice just this week how glad he is we have it and how it helps him so much.

 

A little background - My kids are DS9, DD5, and DD1. I have been using Anki with DS9 for 3.5 years. I have made about 4000 cards (*not* including a huge Spanish DuoLingo deck I downloaded recently), and DS9 knows ~2500 of them. About 1400 are currently suspended (more on that later), and the remaining ~100 are currently new cards he will receive soon.

 

By the way, how old are your kids? And are you using the installed Windows desktop version of Anki, or a different version? I use primarily the Windows desktop version and the Android app, and I’m not sure how different the other versions are.

 

Now to give you my $0.02 on your specific questions, then I’ll follow up in a different post with more info on how I manage Anki in our homeschool -  

 

1)  Profiles - Yes, for best use of the system (especially longterm), each child needs their own profile. Yes, this will allow each child targeted review, as you said. However, for me, there are some subjects for which both DS9 and DD5 use the same profile to start out, and that might be something you would want to consider for CC to start out (although maybe not if your DS memorizes much faster than your DD as you said). I’ll explain in a subsequent post how I currently manage a single deck with my kids on a couple of subjects.

 

(Btw, I noticed you asked how to create a new profile. If you are using the installed (desktop) Windows version of Anki, when you first click to open Anki, it should give you a Profiles window, where there should be a button on the right side that says Add. If not, then in the main Anki window where you see your decks listed, go to File Switch Profiles and that will take you to the Profiles window where you can click Add. I think a PP mentioned this but I couldn't remember and don't have time to look at the moment.)

 

2)  Anki With CC – We are not in CC but I do have the Foundations Guide. You said most of your memory work is “very longâ€. How long is “very longâ€? I ask because when I look in the Foundations Guide, I do see lots of memory work that is a sentence or two, or a list of five or six items. In my use of Anki, I consider there to be three main lengths of cards I deal with:

• short (like a foreign language vocab word with a simple translation)
• medium (a sentence or short list that when recited *fluently* takes usually less than 30 seconds – for us, this includes Bible verses, Catechism, short poems, brief science and history explanations, Latin conjugations and declensions, etc.)
• long (something that recited *fluently* would take anywhere from 30 seconds to 3 minutes)
• very long (something that recited *fluently* would take >3 minutes) (sometimes “discussion items†also fit in this category, for instance foreign language grammar questions that are particularly complex in nature where DS and I go back and forth in the discussion and I want examples from him and such).

I think CC Foundations memory work fits mostly into the “medium†category, with some short and some long. While I don’t do CC, we do tons of short and medium memory work in Anki, and it works great for all of that.

 

3)  Setting Max cards per day – yes, this can be done via deck options. I use multiple decks, and deck options can be set separately for different decks.

 

4)  Pre-entering memory work and introducing a few things each week – This is totally doable. Enter all of your memory work in the order you want to learn it. Then suspend it all. Then each week, go into your card browser, sort your deck by “Createdâ€, and unsuspend the next bunch of cards you want to introduce. Tagging notes makes this even easier.

 

5)  Weekly maintenance – I don’t pre-enter, in fact my Anki entry usually lags my covering the material (but I have found that to not be a problem). I add my new cards in batches (I maintain a lengthy list of books/currics I’m adding to Anki), so occasionally I just spend an evening creating cards. Once the cards are created, I sometimes suspend some, other times just leave them to be introduced according to the deck options schedule. As long as cards are well-organized into decks and tagged, weekly maintenance isn’t too time-consuming.

 

6)  Time to review – DS mainly has decks for: Art Appreciation, Bible, Catechism, Chinese, Language Arts, Latin, Math, Music, Science, and Spanish. Here are two Review Times graphs from my Anki stats page for his entire collection. The first is for the whole collection over the last month, and the next is for his whole collection over the last year.

 

For the last month:

 

For the last year:

 

You can see that the review times really vary. That is based not only on what cards we are getting, but even moreso on what decks we are choosing to do, and which ones I am ignoring for the moment. For instance, during a really busy week I might focus on always getting our foreign language vocab done because there are tons of those cards and they are quick, and we really need to keep that info fresh. But I might not choose to do our Poetry deck because there aren’t as many cards, I know they are already spaced pretty far out (because we don’t add new ones as often), and they are time-consuming to review. So I might not review those during a busy week, but then I might catch up on a Saturday and do all of those long cards.

 

Also, we were on vacation last week couldn’t do Anki (much to my chagrin!!) so you can see that after getting back on Friday, we spent two hours Saturday doing Anki, and then on Monday still had over two hours to get caught up.. but then we did it every day and by the following Saturday we were down to 15 min. We never do Anki on Sunday, so Monday is usually a larger batch for us.

 

I usually budget an hour a day for Anki, but if we just make sure to do it 5-6 times/wk then it often takes far less than that (unless I’m in a phase where I’m adding a lot of new cards, then reviews get longer... but then we take a break from adding new and get them back down again). And that is for what I consider to be a very large set of cards. An hour a day might seem like a lot, but seriously, the payoff is HUGE!!

 

7)  Independent review – I generally don’t have my kids do any independent review (more on that in a subsequent post). However, adding Audio would seem to me to be a great way to implement independent review if you have a struggling reader.

 

8)  Spelling – I’m going to put this answer in a second post, since I think I have a solution for you :D

[Tranquility7]

Ok, Spelling practice in Anki..... I

I put spelling rules into Anki, but not spelling words. However, I think I’ve actually hit on a fairly awesome solution for you (and I might even start using it myself for DD5)!

 

You said your son needs to write out his spelling words. Does your son type? If he does, or if you could get him started learning, then doing the spelling words in Anki would be super simple. But even if he can’t type it is still pretty simple. This is how I would do it:

 

First, go to Shared Decks and download the deck I just made for you called Spelling Card Types. Click the green Download button at the bottom of the page and it will download. Once you download it, you can double click it (or it might open automatically, I can't remember) and then it will import the deck into your collection. This shared deck only includes two notes, but it will give you two card types I just created for you – one for if your DS can type, and the other for if not.

 

Then, if your son can type:

1. Create your spelling deck. Create cards using the new “Spelling Words Typed†card type that I just made for you. To select the new card type, in the card browser, click Add, then click the Card Type, and the new types should now be in your card type list (as long as you downloaded my Shared Deck I mentioned above).
2. Create your spelling cards. For “Sentence with clozeâ€, type a sentence that includes the word. Highlight the spelling word and make it a Cloze deletion word by clicking on the [...] button.
3. Move to the audio field and click the red dot button to record audio. Say, “Apple. The boy ate an apple.†(or whatever your word and sentence are) (hopefully you have a decent mic; it doesn’t take much)
4. You could do some tagging if you wanted, for things like lesson number, spelling rule, whatever. Or not. Or come back and tag later if you find  you need it.
5. Tell your DS that when he gets the card, he has to listen and type in the missing word and then hit Enter. Anki will leave his typed word green if it is correct. If it is wrong, Anki will show him what is wrong. He can then click Again/Hard/Good/Easy.  **Keep in mind that Anki defaults to Good – it does NOT preselect an answer here based on whether the typed answer matches the cloze text – your DS must pick the appropriate one.

With this method your cards will look like this:

Front when first presented (audio will play automatically):

 

Front when your DS types an answer:

 

Back when your DS clicks Show Answer:

 

If your son cannot type in his answer:

1. Create your spelling deck. Create cards using the new “Spelling Words Written†card type.
2. Create your spelling cards. All the fields are the same as for Spelling Words Typed, they just display differently for your DS.
3. Tell your DS that when he gets the card, he has to listen and write the missing word on his whiteboard. After he finishes writing it, he can click Show Answer and compare what he wrote to the word Anki displays. He can then click Again/Hard/Good/Easy.

With this method your cards will look like this:

Front when first presented (audio will play automatically):

 

Back when your DS clicks Show Answer:

 

Hopefully what I've written is fairly clear but feel free to ask questions if you have any trouble.

[Tranquility7]

Oh, two more things for now.

 

First, if you decide to use the Spelling Words Written card type for now because your DS cannot type, you can very easily convert all of those cards to be the Spelling Words Typed card type later. That way if he learns to type in a year or two, you can just convert all the cards and he can type all off his answers (and have Anki then display any wrong answers) rather than write them on the whiteboard. Easy peasy :-)

 

Second, you might notice that I have a lot of buttons on my Anki interface that you may not have. That is because I have the Colorful Toolbars add-on installed, which I highly recommend. "Colorful toolbars" is a misnomer because being colorful is irrelevant. They are USEFUL! The BEST button it adds is one for “Hide this note for today†– which means if you get to a lonnnng card that will bring your review process to a screeching halt, you can instead skip it for today and put it off until tomorrow. And continue on your merry way zipping through your review deck for today. Yeehah! It also has a button for replaying audio on a card, which will be handy for your DS if you end up implementing the spelling cards I suggested above.

 

To install the Colorful Buttons add-on:

1. Open Anki
2. Go to Tools --> Add-ons --> Browse & Install
3. Paste this number into the Code field: 388296573
4. Click Ok. It will install the add-on and prompt you to restart Anki.

If you decide you want to check out other Add-ons, you can get to them by going to Tools --> Add-ons --> Browse & Install and click Browse. In additional to Colorful Toolbars, my favorites are:

 

Deck name in Title (displays profile and deck name in title bar of window) - 3895972296

Advanced Browser (adds some helpful functionality to the card browser window) - 874215009

Unseen and Buried Counts (shows you how many unseen and buried cards on your decks page) - 161964983

Ignore Accents in Browser Search (ignores accents in foreign languages when sorting cards in the browser) - 1924690148

More Overview Stats 2 (gives more stats about the deck on the deck overview page) - 531984586

Power format pack (allows you to add fancier formatting to your cards) - 162313389

Zoom (helpful to make display larger when images are too small) - 1956318463

Chinese Support (absolutely invaluable if you are entering Chinese vocabulary) - 3448800906

[Syllieann]

Tranquility, how do you enter spelling rules? We use a rules-based program, and I'd like to add it to Anki. Are cloze cards best or a cue? I'm not sure how to approach it. For example:

 

We often double ........., ..........., ............, and."............ at the end of a one syllable word.

[Tranquility7]

Tranquility, how do you enter spelling rules? We use a rules-based program, and I'd like to add it to Anki. Are cloze cards best or a cue? I'm not sure how to approach it. For example:

 

We often double ........., ..........., ............, and."............ at the end of a one syllable word.

 

For spelling rules, I use mostly cloze, and some Basic card types -

{{c1::F, L, and S}} are often {{c2::doubled after a single vowel at the end of a one-syllable word}}.

English words don't end in {{c1::i, j, u, or v}}.

What is a vowel team syllable? A syllable where two or more vowels are working together to make one sound.

[MeaganS]

Thank you for this thread. I've been putting of setting up Anki for us, and this thread inspired me. I spent a few hours this afternoon making cards for us. And I have ideas for lots more. It is a bit of a learning curve, but I'm hopeful that it will be worth it.