Sofia's Science Dojo

15 minutes a day beats 2 hours on Sunday. That is the biggest secret in East Asian schooling. Little and often, every day, like guitar practice.

Open one topic. Read the cheat code out loud (use the speaker button). Say it in your own words. Then do the three tries.

Get one wrong? Brilliant, that is data. Write it in your Mistakes Book (错题本 — cuò tí běn). Chinese students keep a notebook of only the questions they got wrong, then redo them a week later. It is the single most effective study trick in Asia.

Say it back without looking. After reading a cheat code, close your eyes and say it. If you can't, read it again. That is retrieval practice, and it beats re-reading every time.

Teach it to dad. If you can explain the cheat code to him, you own it. If he looks confused, that's on him.

The game bits: stickers hatch eggs, bosses guard belts, wrong answers come back for a rematch, and Rocky will tell you when it's squish time. Nothing is timed. Nothing is lost for a wrong answer.

Dyslexia tools are at the bottom of the screen. Change the font, make the text bigger, tint the page, switch on the reading ruler, or have the page read to you. Use whatever makes your brain happiest. Nothing here is timed.

Same six habits as the maths dojo (mastery in small steps, concrete before abstract, one problem many ways, chanting for automaticity, the mistakes book, daily short practice). Science adds three of its own:

1. Equations and definitions are memorised cold, first. Chinese science classes have students write the formula list from memory every morning (公式默写). Understanding comes second, and comes faster once the vocabulary is automatic. The Black belt "equations you must memorise" topic is built for this.
2. Every topic gets a diagram drawn from memory. The heart, the cell, the circuit, the particle model. Drawing beats reading for retention, and for a dyslexic learner a picture she drew herself is the most reliable memory she has.
3. Answer templates for long questions (答题模板). The six-mark question is the same shape every year. The recipe is in the Black belt and it should be practised until it's boring.

What "good" looks like: White is Year 6, Yellow to Green is KS3, Blue and Black cover AQA Combined Science Trilogy (Higher content included). The required practicals get their own topic because examiners ask about variables and errors, not recipes. If she can draw the diagrams and recite the equations by the end of Year 10, Year 11 is revision, and grade 7-7 is realistic.

Dyslexia notes: science vocabulary is the hard part (mitochondria, electrolysis). Every new term here is chunked, given a memory hook, and repeated in the questions. Get her saying the words aloud; the ear remembers what the eye loses.