Hi,

I don't care much for learning how to write/practice tones, but I do want to learn how to read a lot of them. Is there a way to customize the standard "Study" settings on the iTouch app, so that new words will be added but will only test reading? It's possible to do this in the Advanced Study tab, but that only allows for reviewing words and thus no new words would get added.

Thanks for any help!

Go to the web app and change it in the account setting, study setting, parts studying or in the iOS app under settings, vocab, parts.

I am doing more or less the same, however, I keep all 4 parts active, but I'm not so strict on writing and tones. My experience is that I'm better in recognizing when I also do the writing. But give it a try and find out, what works for you.

You are awesome :). Thanks!

The question is though, if you have all four parts added, the writing seems to show up first. If you don't pass the writing, the other parts won't even be tested (probably due to the close timing of all these scheduled reviews), which can get quite frustrating.

I could ban the writing part temporarily, allowing other parts to be studied, then un-ban the writing part once I'm more familiar with the character. This unfortunately has to be done on a per-character basis, and is a chore.

Is there a way to ban the writing for a list?

Yes, you can do this. You have very much control over what you study in Skritter. You have to play around with the study setting in account and also with the list specific study setting.
One way would be this:
1) Go to account > study setting and tick off the writing part.
2) Set the add items to add manually only. This gives you much control over how many items are added, so that you can change the study modus at the right time again.
3) You could set the study setting of your list to stop after each section. This would allow you to learn all the vocab in this list's section without writing first and you easily see, when the section is finished without unintentionally jumping to the next section already.
4) Now add the items which you want to learn. Skritter will only import the pinyin, tone, definition part, not the writing part.
5) Once you have learnt all these items, go back to account > study setting and activate writing. Skritter will tell you that it normally doesn't apply this change backwards, but allows you to select a list(s) where this change should also apply backwards. Select your list and Skritter will set the pointer for adding items to the first section of this list and start scanning through the list to find new items (parts).
6) If the list is quite long, say 20 sections and you are already at section 15, then go to study settings of this list and set start from adding items to section 15.
I normally do these changes on the web app, because it's faster and at least for me, clearer.
But keep in mind, that changes only apply after a sync. That means, you have to force sync on the iOS app or to refresh the relevant tabs on the web app. Otherwise, it may take some time before Skritter applies these changes automatically.

Roland, thank you for taking the time to address this question. Your method will achieve exactly what I mentioned.

My issue with Skritter is, how would you explain that process to a group of teenage students?

I think it sounds more complicated than it really is. You could break it down into 2 categories: 1) General Account Study Setting, 2) Dynamic Setting, which is the toggle between Writing off and Writing on.

If you would make 2 or 3 Screenshots, I believe, they will understand.

An alternative way may be that you use the group feature.

You create a Study Group, you can do this on the Home Page by pressing the Group button in the tools section. Ask your students to join into this group.
You can provide a list to this group and your students are going to study from this list. First you ask them, to switch off the Writing part in the list study setting. Then you watch their progress through the statistics which are provided in the group section. You can tell them at the right time, to switch on again the Writing part. The default in the list study setting is to let Skritter start scanning from the first section. So they don't have to change this.

You cannot manage the list for them, because the individual account study setting will override the list study setting. Furthermore, every student can set the list study settings individually, which also makes a lot of sense.

If you keep the lists small, then there is also no problem that Skritter will always start scanning from the first section. I only had problems, when the list contained more than 1000 items.

I have only tried the Group feature once with my wife, so I do not have a lot of experience with it. You might have to spend some time and give it a try. I just checked whether I can set the list study setting for the whole group and found out, it is individually per account and not on a Group basis. However, as students might study at different pace, it may be OK this way.