Decodable text and ChatGPT

Using AI to create custom decodable for students.

I have a number of students I see each week who are in grades 4-6. One of the biggest challenges of personalizing their instruction is finding appropriate decodable texts. Many times, these learners have confusions on specific concepts, but they have developed other higher-level skills. For example, I have one student who is confused by single syllable words ending with -tch, -dge, and -ck. Yet she is fluent with many vowel teams (e.g., ai, ay) which is a later skill. 

Recently, I was reading a high-interest article with a fifth-grade student on whether schools should allow students to use ChatGPT. After a lively discussion and some writing work, I started thinking about using ChatGPT to create custom decodable books. I tried it and it works!

When I input my request for a text to ChatGPT I make sure to include the concept I want to focus on, the number of words I want in the passage, and the grade level of the student. It's not a perfect process and the text sometimes needs editing, but so far, the students are enjoying a more challenging text overall with a focus on the concepts they need. I even ask ChatGPT to add an illustration to make the text more engaging.

One thing to remember is that refining the request can make the text even more helpful to the student. For example, if the text contains words trigraphs (e.g., str, shr) and those are difficult and haven't been taught, I ask Chat GPT to remove words with trigraphs. 

I have several series of decodables that I select books from, and ChatGPT would never suffice as a single source of decodable text. But, I'm finding it's a great option to have when I want to really zero in on what an intermediate student needs.