Flashcards
How spaced-repetition flashcards work at aitutors.me — the schedule, the lifecycle, how we compare to Anki and the other leading apps, and the research underneath it.
How flashcards work at aitutors.me: the tutor makes them
Your child's flashcards are written by the tutor from the lesson they just had, scheduled by spaced repetition, and every card can eventually be finished.
Spaced repetition explained for parents (no jargon)
Why reviewing something just as your child is about to forget it beats reviewing it often — and what spaced repetition looks like on their own screen.
Tricky, Got it, Too easy: what the three buttons really do
Each of the three grades sets your child's next review gap. Exactly what each button does to the schedule, and why there is never a fourth one on there.
Why a flashcard should hold exactly one fact
The oldest rule in spaced repetition, and the reason most home-made flashcard decks fail: a card that asks for two things simply cannot be graded honestly.
The 90-day ceiling: why cards come back every term
Anki lets review gaps stretch to a hundred years. Ours stop at 90 days, so every live card is seen at least once a term. Here is the full reasoning why.
Why your child never sees more than 20 cards a day
A review session that cannot be finished becomes a debt, and debts get abandoned. The daily cap is the most important single number in the entire product.
When a card gets stuck, we tell the tutor — not the child
Four failures on one card is not a memory problem, it is a misconception. So the card stops drilling and the tutor re-teaches the idea in the next session.
Mastered or put away: giving a flashcard an ending
A card your child has learned and a card they no longer want must never feel the same. Two endings, both reversible, and nothing is ever deleted here.
Tutor-made cards vs decks your child types
Making the cards is the work that ends most flashcard habits. What changes when the tutor writes them from the lesson your child has just had instead.
Reading your child's flashcard Sky
Every card your child owns is a star. Here is what the constellations, the brightness and the rings actually mean — and why it is not a progress chart.
aitutors.me vs Anki for KS3: who each one is really for
Anki is the most powerful spaced-repetition tool ever built and a poor first choice for a twelve-year-old. A fair comparison of what each one is really for.
aitutors.me vs Mochi: one real difference
Mochi is the best-designed flashcard app on the market and the closest to ours in philosophy. The difference is what happens when a card finally ends.
aitutors.me vs RemNote: notes-first vs lesson-first
RemNote turns your notes into flashcards as you write them. Brilliant for a university student, and it assumes a note-taker — which most KS3 children are not.
aitutors.me vs Quizlet: the library vs the schedule
Quizlet has the largest flashcard library in the world and, by its own engineers' account, a scheduler built for next week's test rather than next term's.
aitutors.me vs SuperMemo: the original, and what we owe it
SuperMemo invented this entire field, is now on its nineteenth algorithm, and remains built for the dedicated adult learner. What we borrowed and what we left.
The SM-2 algorithm explained, with the actual arithmetic
The 1990 algorithm behind Anki and aitutors.me, written out properly: ease factors, quality grades, the exact interval formula, and a full worked trace.
FSRS in practice: what the modern scheduler actually changes
FSRS models memory as difficulty, stability and retrievability, cutting reviews for the same retention. How it works, and when it is worth switching over.
The testing effect: why recall beats re-reading
The research showing that trying to remember something changes the memory rather than just measuring it — and why students consistently predict the opposite.
The spacing effect: how long between reviews?
The research on gap length, including the finding that the ideal gap scales with how long you need to remember — and why that sets our 90-day ceiling.
Ten revision techniques ranked by evidence
A landmark review graded ten study techniques by how well they hold up. Only two scored highly, and they are not the two your child is probably using.
Desirable difficulties: why easier studying learns less
Some conditions make learning feel harder and remember better. Understanding which is which explains why a good study tool should not feel frictionless.
Why children misjudge what they know
Research on metacognition explains why a child who says they know it often does not — and why the system should notice while the child still decides it.
Flashcards vs rereading and highlighting
The two things nearly every child does to revise are the two the evidence rates lowest. Why they feel so convincing, and what to swap them for instead.
How many flashcards does a KS3 child actually need?
Fewer than you would guess. The right number of flashcards is set by what a child can maintain every day, not by how much of the curriculum happens to exist.
Starting GCSE revision in KS3 (without calling it that)
The most valuable GCSE revision happens years before anyone mentions GCSEs — not by starting early, but by making sure Year 8 is still there in Year 11.
Building a daily review habit that survives the whole term
Six minutes a day is easy to start and easy to lose. What actually makes a daily review habit stick, and the three things that reliably kill one off for good.
Flashcards for maths, not just vocabulary
Maths is mostly procedures, and procedures are learned by doing them. But the conditions, definitions and facts underneath are exactly what cards are for.
Cramming vs spacing: what to do in the week before a test
Cramming works for tomorrow and fails by next month. What to do in the fortnight before a test or assessment, including when cramming is the right call.
Falling behind on reviews: what to do (and what not to)
A fortnight off does not break a spaced-repetition system. What actually happens to your child's schedule, and why the recovery needs no heroics at all.
Sharing flashcards safely: how the Shared Sky works
Children can publish a card for others to use. Every safeguarding decision that makes that possible, explained — including what is deliberately not shared.