I resisted doing reading practice for a long time since I did not want to have to keep switching between the wacom and the keyboard. However, I suffer from the effect that many have observed that, when I am reading, I sometimes (often?) don’t recognize a character which I know how to write. So when I recently nuked and started over, I turned on all practice types. I am very happy to be doing all practice types, but there are several undesirable effects I’d like to avoid which happen when everything is turned on at once. (I know that the scheduling has been fine tuned to minimize some of these effects, but I think there is still room for improvement).
1) I would like to avoid the accidental reminders which you get when you get a review for one practice type (say, reading) not too long before being asked to write it.
2) As mentioned, I would really like to minimize the switches between pad and keyboard.
3) I don’t have proof right now, but I believe the scheduling tweaks to avoid putting reading and writing prompts right next to each other mess up the scheduling. In particular, I think that pending reading practice items can keep skritter from adding new words. It also seems to dive into some reading practice on items which aren’t even due yet, when I still have writing items which are ready. (Exiting to the practice page and back in fixes this).

So, what I would like to do is follow a pattern something like this:
- First, do reading and definition practice until I’ve worked off my review queue hopefully, adding a few new words and practicing them a few times in the process.
- Then, switch to writing (and tone?) practice. I would again work off that review queue and add a few words.

An important thing I would like to do is to add reading practice of a character a few days before adding it to writing practice. That is, don’t start trying to write a character until I’ve learned to read it pretty well. One thing this would accomplish would be that I’d be less likely to get a reading prompt during the same session as a writing prompt, getting a “purer” SRS sequence for each. I would also avoid the other issues I mentioned, I think. I could self regulate this without additional support from the Skritter site just by turning my queues and practice types on and off. BUT –
The problem is that, if a character is added from a list when you have some of the practice modes off, the missing practice elements won’t get added when you go back and turn that mode on again. As far as Skritter is concerned, it has added that character and moved on.

What I would really like would be if Skritter kept track of where it was in adding things from a given list separately for each practice type so that I could be at a different point in the list for the different elements and add them in stages the way I want. (A second thing which would help would be if the boxes to enable the different practice types were available on the main practice page instead of off with the settings stuff – but I can live with that).

I really like Skritter, and I really like that I can do all the practice types I want to do through the same website and with the same list management system, etc. And the Skritter community is great!

1) This is a bug--sometimes item spacing doesn't work correctly. It will take me a while to fix it, though.

2) Minimizing switching: I have something, it just doesn't work very well when you're adding words. I yet have to think of a better way for coding these guys up to streak better automatically.

3) Reading practice doesn't suppress new words, but it will continue a streak into slightly not-due territory before switching back to other prompt types. This is related to 2) not being that great.

The custom priorities for adding words, and being able to add words with certain parts turned off, are annoyances we won't have time to solve soon. The ideas are good, but the implementations and interface are hard. Sorry! For now, you'll have to do it manually: do your reviews by toggling parts, then turn all parts on to add at the end of your session.

Or if you want the writings to come later, have those off when you add, then a few days later go back and set yourself to the beginning of the section you're on using the "Study Settings" control on the "More Actions" button on the list page to go back and add the writings that were missed when the words were added the first time.

Thanks! I am quite happy, but for me, those changes would be nice. Since no one else chimed in, though, I must be a minority. Keep up the good work!

Thanks! That answers my question how I can get all the readings back in that I missed over the lase months. I just recently switched on reading practice after the scheduling improvments ended the beta stage. So I don't have too much experience. I just know that in early beta, reading and definition always came in pairs. I got the impression that it's much better now. Many thanks!

The reading streaks can include definition and tone prompts if those are enabled, since they are better done with the keyboard than mouse anyway. It's just writing prompts that it makes sure not to interrupt.