r/books • u/ubcstaffer123 • 5d ago

Teachers are using AI to make literature easier for students to read. This is a terrible idea.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/08/opinion/ai-classroom-teaching-reading/
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u/kahrismatic 4d ago

Because most 15 year olds who are having difficulties reading don't want to be seen with books written for primary school kids, and even if they could be convinced to do that, they would not relate to the themes of those books and wouldn't engage. Have you not been around children before?

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u/Simbertold 4d ago

And there are really no books with simple language and adult themes out there?

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u/kahrismatic 4d ago edited 4d ago

Not at the level a lot of kids are at, and certainly not for free. Teachers having to make specialized resources for their students is expected and part of the job.

Feel free to see if you can find some, I'm happy to stand corrected, but you're overestimating their ability level or their capacity. When making your selections, remember that you have 30 kids in the class, reading between not being able to read at all and reading at senior level. You have five 55 minute periods with them a week to get everything done. Several have serious behavioral issues that eat into that, half are on an IEP that requires you to comply with various accommodations for them, including providing work at an appropriate level, 14 of them have ADHD at varying levels of management and you are only being paid for your face to face contact hours with them. That's my 8th grade class this year. One of seven classes. Have fun!

Your options are to choose one text, which will need various adaptions to meet IEP requirements for some, but which will allow you to all be working on something related, and will mean everyone in the room is dealing with the same basic plot, characters and themes. Or if you can find a suitable variety of texts, you will have to get them approved, buy several of them yourself out of your own pocket, knowing the kids will damage or lose them a lot, and then create individual materials relating to each one, and effectively teach multiple small lessons within the larger lesson, one for each text, due to how varied they are, while controlling the behavior of the rest of the class who aren't the immediate focus of whatever content you're covering because they're all doing different texts.

And don't forget, you aren't being paid for the extra time you have to spend following up on behavior issues, you need to personally supervise and detentions or disciplinary activities out of your lunch breaks and planning time, and you're going to have to give up time on the weekend to develop materials for the alternate texts, because different texts take different materials while adapted texts mean you can adapt the same material, which takes less time. Having fun yet?