Mastery is a ladder, not a checkbox
Five levels, every gate measurable with instruments that actually exist in this house.
| Level | Name | The gate (measurable) |
|---|---|---|
| L0 | unseen | — |
| L1 | introduced | a teaching resource completed (packet finished, chapter done) |
| L2 | capable | ~90%+ accurate, untimed, on fresh generated items — never the taught examples |
| L3 | competent | retained: passes a spaced-repetition gate (3+ spaced reps, 4+ lifetime correct) holding over expanding intervals |
| L4 | proficient | automatic: rate-based — X correct/minute sustained across 2–3 separate days. Only for designated fluency nodes. |
Two design points do most of the work here. First, prerequisites unlock at L3 — retained — not L4. Fluency is a stretch goal, never a gate that blocks the path. Second, most nodes cap at L3; only 14 fundamentals — number facts, place-value operations, decoding rate, digit writing — carry L4 aims, because automaticity there pays compounding dividends everywhere else. And every ledger entry carries an evidence string — a human-readable justification citing the actual work:
L4 math · add & subtract within 5 — "Jul 14 fluency probe: 33 correct, 0 errors in one minute against a 20/min aim — clears the aim decisively."
Single-run today; the formal rule requires sustaining the rate on 2 of 3 separate days.
The Fluency Check Kit — what fluency measurement actually looks like
A six-probe printed kit. One minute per probe, parent-administered with a phone timer. Penelope ran it on July 14 at the kitchen table. The real results:
| Probe | Result (1 min) | Aim | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Add & subtract within 5 | 33 correct, 0 errors | 20/min | Fluent — locked clears the aim decisively |
| Add & subtract within 10 | 21 correct, 1 error | 25/min | Close, not yet re-test scheduled Jul 21 |
| Skip counting 2s/5s/10s | to 66 by 2s · 180 by 5s · 350 by 10s | 60/min | Building re-test Jul 21 |
| Writing digits | full sheet, 15 s to spare | — | Fluent hand speed is not the bottleneck |
| Letter sounds | full sheet, 2 s to spare | — | Fluent automatic |
| Trick words (sight words) | all, 24 s to spare, 1 error | — | Fluent the error: read "her" for "here" at speed |
The skip-count aim of 60/min is probably set too high for age 7 and is flagged for recalibration. Several probe sheets weren't dense enough to find her true ceiling — she finished with time to spare — so the next kit revision packs denser sheets. And these are single-run results; the aims formally require sustaining across 2 of 3 separate days. The instrument gets audited as hard as the kid.
The re-test loop is idiot-proof by design
That was Zack's explicit product bar — he asked for it "idiot proof — me being the idiot here." Scoring a fluency result auto-computes the next step: decisive pass → locked; borderline → confirm in 2 days; under the aim → re-test in 7 days. The console leads with a "Fluency re-tests" panel showing exactly what's due and when, with a one-click button that opens the kit. Telegram reminders fire on the due date. The parent never has to remember anything.
Artifact ingestion — paper feeds the ledger too
July 14, Penelope's 15-minute writing block. The prompt: "What will your life be like when you are 25?" Zack photographed her two handwritten pages and dropped them into the system.
"My job will be to be on stage. And I went to callegeg. My faveret book's will be the searees of the name of this book is secret. And I would like Art. I would like P.E and playing with my sister. And I will like burgers. And I like rollcosters. And I will still Be friend with Millie and Olivia and Penny and Gabby."
What the system extracted from one photographed freewrite:
- Sentence anatomy → L2 (capable). Nine complete sentences, correct capitals and end punctuation. Growth edge identified: seven of the nine open with "And I…" — low sentence variety, which is exactly what the sentence-expansion node targets next.
- Spelling profile confirmed. Every error — callegeg→college, faveret→favorite, searees→series, rollcosters→roller coasters — is a plausible sound-spelling. She's a strong phonetic speller; orthographic conventions are the edge.
- The human part. She wants to be on stage at 25. Her "favorite books" are The Secret Series — the book her dad is reading to her at night; they finished book 1 the previous evening. And she imagines still being friends with Millie, Olivia, Penny, and Gabby.
One artifact, three ledger updates, zero extra work for the kid.
Spaced repetition on the device the kids already use
The kids' home app — "gumball," self-built, running on the family LAN — delivers a daily plan: a message from dad, academic modules, jokes, missions. Every packet ships with a matching SM-2 review pack; when the kid finishes the physical packet, its review pack activates, and the app reinforces the material on an expanding-interval schedule — dense for days, then weekly, then long-tail refreshers. Penelope's spelling program: 127 words, 52 mastered through the SM-2 gate as of this week. Mastery state flows both ways: her app work feeds the ledger — a July 14 analysis of her review responses moved silent-e/vowel-team spelling to L3 (retained) and identified the irregular/multisyllable tail as her next spelling edge.
