Can Artificial Intelligence Tools Generate Text That is Useful for Reading Practice?

Abstract

Reading practice is crucial for students with reading difficulties, but locating texts for reading practice can be time-consuming for teachers. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools (e.g., ChatGPT) can rapidly create text according to specified parameters, but the application of creating content for reading intervention has not been examined. We used six AI tools to generate text based on simple prompts (grade level specified), detailed prompts (grade level and science-related topic specified), and decodable text prompts. Results showed that the readability and text complexity of most texts were higher than the grade levels requested in the prompts, and their syntactic simplicity was lower than human-written grade-level science reading materials. Further, holistic ratings found that texts generated with simple and detailed prompts were largely free from odd or contradictory elements and would be appropriate for instruction and practice opportunities. However, several problems were observed with the texts generated through the decodable prompts, such as being too difficult or unnatural for beginning readers.