Study materials

The study material library is where the lesson itself lives — not a task, but the body of knowledge the child has to learn. You put it in once, and then you can use it in several ways.

Why bother putting it in at all?

Most parents start by writing a quiz from the lesson by hand. That works, but it has to be redone before every test, and it is only good for one thing.

A study material, by contrast, is a one-off investment. Once it is in — even just by photographing two pages of the textbook — you can:

• generate a quiz task from it for the daily plan,
• let the child practise from it on their own, whenever they feel like it,
• start an AI Homework Helper topic tied to exactly that material,
• turn it into audio, if listening works better for them,
• and get a short summary that makes revision quick.

That is the difference that matters: a task is single-use, a study material is a source that many tasks come out of.

How the flow works

1. Source — you paste, upload or photograph the material.
2. Draft — an editable draft is created. You can still fix anything here.
3. Processing — the system builds summaries and a question bank from it.
4. Ready — from here you can start a quiz, practice, an AI topic and audio.

The draft stage matters: you always get to review the text before processing. If the system misread something from a photo, this is where you fix it — everything downstream then works from the corrected text.

How to create a study material

Start with New study material on the Study material tab. You give it a title, a subject and a school year, then pick where the text comes from.

From your own material

• Own text — type or paste it. At least 300 characters are needed. If you already have the lesson digitally this is the fastest route, and it is entirely free.
• PDF file — upload it and the system extracts the text. Good for digital workbooks and downloaded lesson plans.
• Word (DOCX) — the same from a Word document.
• TXT file — a plain text file.
• Photo / OCR — see below.

Photo / OCR — what it means in practice

"OCR" is a technical term, but what it means is very simple: you photograph the page of the textbook or exercise book with your phone, and DinkyTask reads the text out of it. You do not have to type anything.

In practice that is all there is to it:

1. Open the textbook at today's lesson.
2. Take 1–3 photos of it (that is the maximum you can upload at once).
3. The system converts it to text.
4. Review and correct it — this step matters, because recognition is not always perfect: blurry photos, handwriting or multi-column layouts can produce errors.
5. Accept it, and processing can start.

A few tips for better results: good light, hold the camera square to the page, and ideally keep one page per photo. Handwriting is a harder case than printed text.

Text recognition costs AI credit (roughly 2 credits per image) — exact pricing is on the AI and credit allowance page.

If the AI writes it

• AI study material — you describe what the child should learn, for what age, and how detailed it should be, and the AI writes an editable draft. Good when the book is not at hand, or when you want a topic explained more simply.
• AI reading text — writes a shorter passage for reading comprehension. That one fits the reading task better.

It is worth reading AI-written material before you save it — the app flags it too, with a "parental review recommended" note.

What happens during processing?

Processing does not just store the text, it turns it into something usable:

• Quick study version — a short summary that makes revision fast.
• Detailed summary and key points — the essentials pulled out.
• Question bank — categorised questions that the quiz and the practice mode draw from.
• Chunks — the text split into searchable pieces; this is what lets the AI Homework Helper answer precisely from your material.

Processing uses AI credit (from around 10 credits, growing with the length of the text). The list shows the estimated token count and the number of chunks for every material, so you can judge afterwards how much you put in.

What can you use it for? — four directions

1. A quiz task in the daily plan

When you create a quiz task, AI generation offers a "From study material" mode where you pick a processed material. The questions are then built from your text rather than from general knowledge — the faithful option when you are revising for a test.

From there it is an ordinary quiz task: you put it into the daily plan and set its point value, attempts and threshold.

2. Independent practice

Practice differs from a quiz in that it is not part of the daily plan. The child practises when they feel like it, as often as they want. Questions come one at a time, progress is saved, and the result only appears at the end of the round.

• Reward — if the child answers every question in a round correctly, they get the configured ⭐ stars (or 💎 diamonds).
• Daily cap — how much can be earned from this material in one day (5 by default). This is what stops practice turning into point farming.
• Bonus chest — after a successful round a chest may appear, which can be empty or pay double or triple. The chance is configurable (30% by default).

Practice needs at least 5 active questions — that is one round. If it is enabled and the child has not attempted anything that day, they can get a gentle reminder, at most once a day.

3. An AI Homework Helper topic

You can start an AI Homework Helper topic directly from a study material. The difference from a freely written topic is that the AI works from the processed material and the chunks relevant to the topic — so it stays within what the teacher gave.

A bonus: in the chat the child can open the Source button and read the short summary, the detailed summary and the full material.

4. Audio (read-aloud)

You can generate audio from the full processed text for the child to listen to. This works well for children who learn more easily by ear, and for revision while travelling or before bed.

Audio is generated with the Stella voice and costs credit based on the length of the text — you always see the estimate before starting (for a ~12,000-character material, roughly 185 credits). Generating a material once is enough; after that it can be replayed any time.

The question bank — if you want to get involved

The question bank stores questions grouped into categories and is fully editable: you can add a question by hand, deactivate one that came out wrong, and create new categories.

Categories exist so you can target practice: if the dates are fine but the concepts are not, you can bring up just that part. The active question count per category also shows where there are too few questions for practice.

Who can see it? — access per child

A study material does not automatically appear for every child. Under Access you tick who sees it in their own Study material menu.

One important consequence: if a child is not ticked, then neither the material nor the AI helper topic started from it appears for them. With several children, this is the most common reason someone "cannot find" the material.

Practice and AI helper settings are also per child — siblings can get different rewards and different daily caps from the same study material.

Practical advice

• One study material = one lesson. Do not put a whole chapter in: focused material produces better questions and a more usable summary.
• Always review the text after photographing. Two minutes of checking saves a lot of bad quiz questions.
• Give it a descriptive title. "History" tells you nothing six months later; "Ancient Rome — the republic" does.
• Quiz before a test, practice otherwise. A quiz assesses and pays points in the plan; practice is voluntary and builds confidence.
• Do not generate audio for everything. It costs credit; it is worth it where the child genuinely listens to it.
• Look at the question bank at least once. Generated questions are usually good, but the odd ambiguous one is worth deactivating.