Notifications

What Zen Reader tells you about, and how to turn down the ones you do not want.

The Notifications screen is the inbox for everything the app wants to tell you: a child finished a reading or a spelling practice, a spelling test is coming up, a report card is due, a family invitation, a teacher asking for access, a Reader's suggested edit and its outcome, a comment about a reader, a badge unlocked, reading reminders and streak nudges, and occasional announcements from us.

A spelling practice that ends with a photo — spelling Write practice, the spelling Test, or a word list's Write practice — is only announced once the sheet has been marked, so the notification carries the result; a run whose photo has not been taken yet sends nothing. Tapping it opens that run's report, with the portfolio behind it.

It also carries tasks and teachers' books:

• A new task — "Mei has a new task", or "You have a new task" on the child's own device, saying who set it when somebody else did.
• A task coming due — with how much of it is done so far.
• A task finished — "Mei finished a task"; tap it to see how it went.
• A teacher shared a book — the book is already in your Library when the note arrives.

And once a term, for a parent:

• New term: add this term's lists — "Import the spelling and word lists your child's teacher sent home, so practice matches this term." It comes in the first week of each school term (around the first Wednesday), as a push as well as in the inbox, and only if nobody in the family has added or changed a spelling or word list since the term began. Singapore families get it on the school calendar; elsewhere it uses the term dates you enter in the reader profile. In a family with Chinese books the app also shows a banner across the top asking for the new lists — see Spelling practice.

If the app is sent a kind of notification it does not know yet, the row reads New notification and asks you to update Zen Reader to see it.

Refresh and Mark all read are at the top. Each row shows its title and when it arrived, the message under that, and Mark read below the message. A row that has somewhere to go opens it when you tap it. The unread count sits on the menu item and updates live.

Turning them down

Settings → Notifications is yours alone — it changes what reaches you, not what anyone else in the family gets.

Push notifications on my devices is the master switch, and it only covers pushes: with it off, everything still arrives on the Notifications page inside the app.

Below it are four categories, and these are not push-only — turning one off stops it reaching you in the app as well:

• Activity updates (readings and spelling)
• Comments about a reader
• Edit suggestions
• Reminders and nudges — this one also covers the new-term reminder above.

If you are being over-notified, this is the section to open.

Reading reminders

A Daily reading reminder goes only to children who have not read or practised that day, at a time the Family Manager chooses — the default is 2:30 pm, in your own timezone. Streak reminders are separate. Both are off unless they are turned on, in Settings → Reading reminders.

A reminder you have not opened does not pile up. The inbox keeps only the newest unread Time to read reminder — and likewise the newest streak nudge and spelling reminder — so a week away from the app leaves one of each, not seven. Ones you have already read stay in the list as before, and nothing is deleted.

That section is on the Family plan only, so an Individual-plan account will not find it.

Beyond that, pushes on a phone or tablet also obey your device's own notification settings.