How to help your child with Norwegian gloser (when you don't speak Norwegian)

Gloser are the weekly vocabulary lists Norwegian schools send home, often with a test at the end of the week. You don't need to speak Norwegian to help: quiz your child both ways for ten minutes on three or four days, have them answer before checking, and spend the extra time on the words they miss.

Written by the Ask Poppy team, who make one of the tools mentioned here. The advice works with any AI, or none. We haven't run a controlled study of our own app.

A four-day plan that fits around the test

1. Day 1: read the list together, say each word out loud, and spot the tricky ones.
2. Day 2: self-test both ways. Your child writes the answer before checking. Circle the misses.
3. Day 3: only the circled words, then one full round.
4. Day before the test: one full practice test, mixed order, written by hand.

This uses two of the best-tested ideas in learning research: retrieval practice (testing yourself) and spacing (a little, often) (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006; Cepeda et al., 2006). Plain-English summaries: testing beats rereading and spacing beats cramming.

Free tools that help

• Gloseøving: our free tool (in Norwegian). Paste the week's list, practise both ways, type the answer yourself, get your mistakes back, or print a test sheet. No login.
• Ordbøkene: the official Bokmål and Nynorsk dictionaries, for checking what a Norwegian word means.
• Skoleruta 2026/2027: school holidays for nine large municipalities, so you can plan around them.
• Active recall flashcards for longer lists or other subjects.

If you're new to the Norwegian school system

• Homework usually arrives as a weekly plan (ukeplan), often in an app or learning platform the school chooses. Gloser are typically listed there.
• Norwegian has two written standards, Bokmål and Nynorsk. Your child's school uses one as the main form; check which before practising spelling.
• Teachers generally welcome a short message if the lists are too hard or too easy. It's normal to ask.

Using AI without skipping the learning

A voice assistant can read the words out, quiz your child and correct pronunciation by example. The rule from our research round-up applies: the child answers first, then checks. If the AI gives the answer before your child tries, it's doing the remembering for them.

Where Ask Poppy fits

We make Ask Poppy, so weigh this accordingly. It's a voice-first thinking companion app for iPhone, iPad and Mac. A child holds to talk and Poppy speaks back; it asks what they already know and offers one hint at a time rather than leading with the answer. Parents can add up to three child profiles and open each child's conversations (children are told a parent can see them). It can look things up on the web and check national curriculum goals (fullest for Norway, Sweden and Finland; core subjects for England, France, Germany and Spain). Free with 30 messages a day, then $3.99/week or $9.99/month (US App Store). Like any AI, it can make mistakes.

Ask Poppy speaks Norwegian and English (and over 50 other languages) and includes the Norwegian LK20 curriculum goals, so it can quiz a child aloud in either language.

Sources (checked 28 Oct 2026): Roediger & Karpicke, Psychological Science, 2006 · Cepeda et al., Psychological Bulletin, 2006 · Ordbøkene (Språkrådet and the University of Bergen) · Ask Poppy on the App Store. Ask Poppy facts are from the current app (version 1.8.3) and its App Store listing. US prices; they vary by country, retailer and sale. Spot something out of date? Email [email protected].

Questions

What are gloser?

Gloser are the weekly vocabulary lists Norwegian schools send home, usually in the weekly plan (ukeplan). They're most common for English, and later German, French or Spanish, and there's often a short test (gloseprøve) at the end of the week.

How can I help with gloser if I don't speak Norwegian?

You don't need to. The skill is recall: your child sees one side of the word and produces the other from memory. You can read out the words, check the spelling against the list and keep score. A free practice tool or a dictionary such as Ordbøkene covers the Norwegian side.

What is the best way to learn gloser?

Short self-tests spread over the week. Testing yourself beats rereading, and spreading practice over several days beats cramming the night before. Ten minutes on four days works better than forty minutes on Thursday.

Should my child practise both directions?

Yes. Tests may ask English to Norwegian or Norwegian to English, and producing the foreign word is harder than recognising it. Practise the harder direction more.

Can AI help with gloser?

It can quiz your child out loud, use each word in a sentence, or explain a word they keep mixing up. Make sure your child answers before the AI shows anything; the recall is what makes the word stick.

Related

• Gloseøving: free gloser practice (Norwegian)
• Skoleruta 2026/2027
• Best screen-free AI and audio tools for kids
• Yoto vs Toniebox vs an AI voice companion
• Does AI make kids dumber? The research
• Does AI hurt kids' writing and creativity?
• Voice AI for young kids (5 to 9)
• All comparisons
• Guides on raising kids alongside AI

By Simon Dreyer, founder of Ask Poppy · Last updated 28 October 2026 · How we write these pages