# Question Ladder

> A Socratic tutor that asks before it tells. Learn one concept, passage, claim, language exchange or child's homework by being questioned: the tutor asks, you answer with a confidence rating, and it probes, hints, checks your draft or recaps - every turn typed and tracked on a concept-mastery map. https://question-ladder.skillsafe.ai/

Question Ladder is a tutoring dialogue with instruments, not a chat and not a lecture. Each tutor turn is one of four types and carries a structured payload the page reconciles against its own facts.

## Modes

- Explain a concept (Feynman: say it back in your own words)
- Read a passage (comprehension, asked not told; quotes must be word for word from the passage)
- Weigh a claim (critical thinking about a headline: correlation, confounding, what would settle it)
- Practise a language (conversation in the target language with up to two gentle wording corrections per turn)
- Homework with a parent (questions go to the child; a tip for the parent rides along)

## Turns

- open -> a diagnostic question, with 2-3 graded hints prepared and hidden
- answer -> honest feedback plus the next rung of the question ladder, an assessment of the answer, and a support-level move
- stuck -> a hint turn: support rises one level, a smaller step, an easier question
- check -> a check of your draft: what holds up, and one question that makes you find the weak part
- summary -> a recap per concept you worked on, a transfer question in a new context, one practice suggestion

## Instruments (free, in the browser)

- Concept map: derived from your passage or topic (sentence splitting and keyword phrases), editable, up to 8 concepts. The tutor may only target these ids; anything else it mentions is flagged as a suggestion you can accept, never added by itself.
- Mastery bars: per concept, moved by each assessment (correct +25, partial +10, misconception -15, stuck -5 points; a hint opened before answering shrinks a gain) and averaged with the tutor's own estimate.
- Support dial: five scaffolding levels from 1 (you teach it back) to 5 (the tutor shows a worked step); you set the most help you want, the tutor fades one level at a time.
- Confidence slider on every answer, and a check of when you were more sure than right (or more right than sure).
- Timeline of typed turns, graded hints revealed one at a time for free, five replayable example dialogues, Markdown export of the dialogue and a JSON mastery record.

## Free vs paid

Free, no sign-in: the intake, the concept map, the examples (seven recorded turns each), revealed hints, the dial, exports, and saving in this browser. Paid: each tutor turn, on credits, with the reserved amount shown per turn type before you send. Signed-in dialogues save to your SkillSafe account and resume on any device.

## How a turn is sent

There is no server-side chat session. Each turn is one stateless run carrying the clipped passage (opening and closing sentences kept, the middle replaced by a marker), the concept map with current mastery, and a compact transcript window (the opening question plus the last six entries; older ones replaced by a marker). The page tells you what was cut.

## API

https://question-ladder.skillsafe.ai/api.html - send `task` (open, answer, stuck, check, summary) with the topic, mode, learner, passage, concepts_json and transcript; the reply is JSON Lines.

## Sources

Method from the SkillSafe skill @lyndonkl/socratic-teaching-scaffolds (https://skillsafe.ai/skill/@lyndonkl/socratic-teaching-scaffolds/): question ladders, misconception detectors, Feynman explanations, worked-example fading and five scaffolding levels.