My tutoring company works with students across the country, and one pattern I consistently see in children ages 5-12 is how much the pandemic disrupted attention, stamina and confidence as learners. Before we can even talk about skill development, we have to rebuild engagement. Finding a student’s instructional reading level matters, but what matters just as much is whether they actually want to read what’s in front of them.
My approach combines small-group and one-on-one instruction with OnWord Stories, a tool that generates personalized reading passages. What validated this approach for me wasn’t data — it was a moment. A student looked at a story I assigned and said, “This is so cool. It’s exactly what I wanted to read.” That reaction told me everything. When students see themselves and their interests reflected in text, they lean in. And that’s where real learning starts.
Using a leveling system to set up reading centers
To build independence in literacy centers, students need texts that are truly matched to their instructional level. When materials are too easy, students disengage. When they’re too hard, they shut down. Teachers shouldn’t have to constantly intervene just to explain the text itself.
Tools that deliver stories at different guided reading or Lexile levels allow students to work productively while teachers focus on targeted small-group instruction. The goal is to create an environment where students can practice purposefully, without needing constant redirection.
How to structure personalized reading to build transferable skills
Personalization should never lower the bar. Engagement and rigor are not opposites; they should exist together. Even when students are reading about interests like soccer, superheroes, or Legos, they should still encounter rich vocabulary, such as “curious” or “determined,” that they can transfer into their own speaking and writing.
At early reading levels, students need strong phonics-based instruction, including work with CVC words, patterns and repetition to build fluency. As students move up, passages should intentionally introduce abstract thinking, figurative language, and foreshadowing so they can begin analyzing texts more deeply. Interest gets them started. Skill work moves them forward.
Stories can also support social-emotional learning. When students read about characters who struggle, collaborate or persevere, they see themselves in those moments. A strong literacy tool should support this by generating meaningful discussion questions rather than just recall. Questions like, “How did this character show perseverance?” or “What would you have done differently?” push students to think beyond the page.
How to choose an effective AI literacy tool
AI is everywhere right now, but not all tools are designed with education in mind. If you ask a generic chatbot to generate a story, you’ll often get something surface-level followed by basic recall questions. That’s not instruction — that’s busywork.
When evaluating AI tools, I look for a built-in instructional framework. Are the questions aligned to Bloom’s Taxonomy? Is vocabulary intentional and tiered? Is the text complexity scaffolded appropriately? Teachers should not have to become prompt engineers just to get quality materials. The right tools do the heavy lifting so educators can focus on what matters – teaching.
Technology works best in literacy when it supports independence and rigor at the same time. Engagement is the entry point. For many students, that starts with representation. I recently assigned a story to a student who lives and breathes soccer. The character in the story looked just like him. He paused and said, “That looks just like me. How did the computer know?” Then he went right back to reading. That’s the power of relevance.
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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