How Tracing Difficulty tunes Auto, Easy, Medium, and Hard
A parent guide to Tomorrow Kid’s Tracing Difficulty—Parental Check path, Auto adaptive help, Easy/Medium/Hard path width, and when to lock a level for first tries or confident writers.
What Tracing Difficulty is for
Tomorrow Kid’s Tracing Difficulty setting is the parent control for how wide the handwriting path feels—and how much help the engine gives. Kids pick pencil styles and left-hand layout on the Tracing screen; they cannot change difficulty from the canvas. Parents set it on purpose after the Parental Check math gate.
Four modes live under Settings → Tracing, saved on this device (tracingDifficulty). Default is Auto:
- Auto — adapts by itself: more help when struggling, less when flying (blends Easy→Hard from a rolling skill score)
- Easy — wide path, lots of help — best for first tries
- Medium — the standard path
- Hard — thin path, little help — for confident writers
Fixed Easy / Medium / Hard ignore the skill score. Auto still tracks slips and clean strokes in the background, so switching back to Auto later starts from real history. Difficulty never changes what letter or shape is on screen—only corridor width, start tolerance, and watch-me demo pace.
How to change Tracing Difficulty
- Open Settings from Home (parent math gate / Parental Check first—same gate used for Sound and Language)
- Find the Tracing section (caption: Easy widens the path; Hard thins it)
- Use the segmented Difficulty picker: Auto, Easy, Medium, or Hard
- Read the live subtitle under the picker so the mode matches what you meant
- Return to Tracing, open a Lines / Shapes / ABC glyph, and confirm the gray guide path feels right
Prefs apply on this device immediately. They do not change pencil ink (Crayon → Neon) or L/R left-hand chrome—those stay separate kid-facing controls.
A calm way to introduce it at home
- Pass the parent math gate yourself before inviting your child into Settings.
- For a first week of pre-writing, leave Auto on so help arrives when strokes slip and fades when they fly.
- If early lines feel too fussy, lock Easy for a few sessions, then return to Auto.
- For a confident writer who wants a thinner corridor, try Hard for one letter—then switch back if frustration rises.
- Pair with the main Tracing guide for Lines → Shapes → ABC context—this page is only the Settings deep-dive.
What to try next
After Difficulty feels right, peek at pencil styles or left-hand mode if your child’s hand covers hints. When you are ready, open Tomorrow Kid, pass the Settings math gate, and set Tracing → Difficulty for how your family actually traces.