Understood is not practised.
Zahlomat does not drill a fixed list of exercises - it generates them: one generator per learning goal, setting the difficulty by what the child can already do. What wobbles comes back more often. What sits, less.
For iPhone and iPad · school years 1 to 7 · planned for the App Store
Exercises are generated. No list for anyone to maintain - 117 learning goals, each with its own generator.
The mistake gets a name. Not „wrong", but „carry over ten forgotten".
No server. Everything stays on your devices and in your private iCloud.
One task
After the mistake comes the way
The correct number on its own is a piece of information. A child who worked out 48 − 66 knows the result afterwards but not the way - and does the same thing next time.
The task
The strip above the task says what it is about and which school year it comes from. A child who does not know why this particular task turned up needs both.
The keypad offers every character the answer can contain - a missing decimal comma is the difference between hard and impossible.
The mistake gets a name
Carry over ten forgotten. Place value slipped. Digits swapped. Out by one. The other operation. Remainder forgotten.
Zahlomat works out which wrong path leads to the number that was typed - and would rather say „some other mistake" than a diagnosis with nothing behind it.
The way, if asked for
„Shall I show you how it works?" - and then come the steps, not the solution. It asks first, because an explanation nobody wanted gets skipped.
Where there is nothing to derive, nothing is offered: for 7 · 8 the „way" would be the task again.
At the end it says what happened
Task, your answer, correct answer - side by side in a table. Above it, the kinds of mistake from this round, by frequency.
No „well done!" after three out of ten. Praise that is not true is praise a child stops believing.
From the app
A few examples, across the years.
From the number wall in year 1 to the balance scale in year 7 - typed, slid, placed or picked. The screenshots show the app as it is: in German.
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Number wall · Year 1 Each brick is the sum of the two below it.
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Number line · Year 1 The number is found with the slider, not typed.
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Setting the clock · Year 2 The hands are dragged with a finger.
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Placing money · Year 2 Real coins at their real sizes, dragged onto the table or tapped.
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Times tables · Year 2 Correct - and the whole task is shown once more.
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Multiplication cross · Year 3 The times table grid with gaps, row by row.
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Quick maths · Year 3 Three answers, one is right.
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Written addition · Year 3 Right to left, with the carries written in.
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Target number · Year 3 Build 23 from 8, 7 and 2.
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Long multiplication · Year 4 First the partial rows, shifted one place, then add them up.
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Area · Year 4 The measurements are on the shape, not in the sentence.
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Setting fractions · Year 5 Set parts and filled pieces until it is one half.
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Decimals · Year 5 The keypad has a comma where the answer needs one.
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Area of a circle · Year 6 Wrong is not just wrong: the mistake gets a name.
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Balance scale · Year 7 An equation as a balance: how heavy is one x?
What is in it
Arithmetic does not always look the same
A number pyramid is not a keypad, and you do not set a clock by typing. Seventeen ways of presenting a task cover that - each with the intermediate steps where it goes wrong at school.
117 learning goals
In seven areas, school years 1 to 7, with 331 difficulty levels. The school year steers the content, the child's ability the difficulty.
32 rules to read up on
Grouped by subject, not by learning goal: nine times tables are one rule. With the pitfalls that are in no exercise book.
67 word problems
As templates with rolled numbers and names. Same situation, never the same sum - and never three times in one round.
Doable in your head
The app has no paper. Where a formula would lead to awkward numbers, the measurements are chosen - not the method.
Six games
The shop counts real money
Put it down, count it - and „put down enough to get exactly 1 € back". That is the move you make at the till, and a keypad cannot ask for it. The coins keep their real size ratios: fifty cents is bigger than one euro, which is exactly why children mix them up.
No game moves the learning record, and that is deliberate: a pair found by trial says nothing about ability, and a cross earned under time pressure would look like a gap in the times tables. What games record are personal bests.
For parents
From the overview into the details.
Every number with an arrow can be tapped. Behind it: where the success rate comes from, which tasks went wrong and whether it is enough for the next class test.
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The overview Today's tasks, four key figures, the next class test - every number with an arrow can be tapped.
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Correct Where the success rate comes from: per topic and compared with last week.
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Where it gets stuck The wrong tasks themselves, with the child's answer and the right one, grouped by kind of mistake.
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Learning record Which learning goals sit, wobble or are stuck - by name.
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Class test How many days are left, how ready, and what is still missing.
One family, several devices
One QR code, and the child's device belongs
A parent sets up the household and invites the children. After that each child has its profile on its own device, and you see on yours how it is going. A child's device has no parents' area - otherwise the child would simply tick off its own homework.
On the family iPad one tap is enough: „Kind übt an diesem Gerät" hands the device over for an afternoon, and the round counts.
Privacy
What Zahlomat does not do
A child's learning record says what it cannot do yet. Everything else follows from that.
No server
There is no networking layer other than the one to Apple's iCloud. No statistics, no crash reporting.
No account
Nothing to create, nothing to forget. The family comes together via a QR code.
No ads, no tracking
No analytics, no identifiers, no third parties.
The tasks are made on the device
No AI that sends what you type out of the house.
Language and status
In preparation - and German inside
The app itself speaks German. Zahlomat is built for German school maths, down to the way a division with a remainder is written; the screenshots on this page show that. This page is in English so you can tell whether the app is for you - it does not promise an English interface.
Zahlomat runs on iPhone and iPad and is being tested. The household is shared with Übomat and Termia: whoever belongs to the family in one app belongs in all of them - and the class test you enter here shows up in Termia's calendar.
A question, a bug, a suggestion: [email protected].