Homework help

Photograph a worksheet and get a tutor that guides rather than hands over answers.

Homework help is for the evening when your child is stuck on a Chinese worksheet and you cannot read it either.

It is the menu item called Homework help. The one just above it, Homework, is a different thing — the list of work somebody has set. See Homework.

How it works

1. Take a photo of the worksheet, or Choose a photo or PDF you already have.
2. The text is recognised and the sheet is uploaded.
3. A back-and-forth starts: your child asks, the tutor responds. They can type or use the microphone, and the replies can be read aloud.

The picture of the sheet stays on screen beside the conversation. Tap to zoom opens it full screen, which is what you want when the print is small.

The screen stays awake while it is open, so it does not dim while your child is working on paper.

Every worksheet is kept under Your worksheets on the first screen, so you can go back to one — or delete it. New worksheet starts another.

Homework on more than one sheet

Primary homework rarely arrives as one tidy page, so a worksheet can hold up to 20 pages and the tutor reads them as one document.

• Several pages opens a staging tray before the conversation starts. Add a photo takes one shot per tap, so you can photograph three loose sheets in a row; Add files picks several photos or PDFs at once. Every page of a PDF is kept, not just the first.
• In the tray you can move a page earlier or later, or remove one, until the order matches the paper in front of you. Start with these pages begins the conversation.
• Add pages does the same thing to a worksheet that is already open, for the fourth sheet your child finds halfway through. New pages go on the end — stored pages cannot be reordered — and the tutor says "I've added page 4 to this worksheet" so it is clear what it has just read.

If a PDF is longer than 20 pages, or an add would take a worksheet past it, Zen Reader says how many were left off rather than quietly clipping them.

It guides — and you choose how much

The point is that your child ends up understanding the question, not holding the answer. How far the tutor may go is a Family Manager setting, under Settings → Homework help → How much should the tutor help?

• Hints only — never the answer.
• Hints first — show if really stuck. This is what a new family starts on.
• Explain the idea — not the answers. Teaches the method behind the question; it still does not do the exercise.

Move it to Hints only if you find your child fishing for the answer, and stay there if it works.

Reading what happened

Parents and Family Managers in the same family can open any conversation and read it. This is deliberate: an AI tutor your child talks to alone should not be a private channel.

When a reply is wrong

Every tutor reply carries a Report this reply action. Use it for a reply that is wrong, misleading, or not appropriate for a child — it reaches us as a real support ticket, with the conversation attached. It is not a rating; it is a report we act on.

Getting a good photograph

The tutor can only work with what it can read.

• The whole question in frame, flat, in even light.
• No shadow across the page and no glare.
• Straight on rather than at an angle.

If the recognised text comes out garbled, retake the photograph before going further — everything downstream depends on it. If the camera is refused, the app says so and offers to open your device settings; if a PDF will not open, photograph the page instead.

It needs the AI helpers turned on

Explaining a worksheet means sending the photograph off the device, so homework help is covered by Settings → AI features. The first time it is used, Zen Reader asks the Family Manager's permission and names who receives what. There is no on-device version of this one, so with it off homework help says so rather than half-working. See Settings.

Homework help and Ask Jas are different

Homework help is about the schoolwork in front of your child. Ask Jas is about Zen Reader itself — how something works, or a question about your account. Both are available to a child, but Jas answers questions about the app rather than about the homework.