Testing future blog posts

We think my son has dyslexia. He is far behind in reading and I’ve struggled to get him to practice reading. Though not officially diagnosed, we suspect dyslexia has played a significant role in his reading difficulties. Despite numerous attempts to find suitable reading materials, progress has been slow, and frustration has often overshadowed any sense of accomplishment.

I had a minor success this week, and wanted to share. In our quest to support his learning, we stumbled upon a novel approach: crafting a personalized Minecraft story tailored to his reading level.

I’ll explain more, but first, here’s the story I wrote for him:

My son loves Minecraft. We’ve tried buying Minecraft beginning reader books in the past, but they were either too hard, or he got bored with them. Also, there were lots of pictures. I’ve noticed that my son often guesses what the words are based on the pictures, but I want he to experience getting the story out of words, not a picture.

To be honest, I didn’t write it all by myself. First I gathered lists of decodable words, and lists of sight words for kindergarten and first grade. My son is in third grade, but I wanted this to be easy. I also threw in some words that his teacher has been sending home, words like: could, night, fight. And, of course, I had to to include some Minecraft words.

ChatGPT Tries to Help

I fed all these lists into ChatPGPT, and asked it…

Me: Please write a short story following these requirements:
- The audience is a 2nd grade boy with dyslexia who is struggling with reading. He is interested in Minecraft.
- As much as possible, use only words from these lists: Unit 2, Unit 3, Kindergarten sight words
- You are also allowed to use these Minecraft related words, which must be underlined: Steve, tree, wood sword, zombie, night
- The story should be about Steve's first night. A zombie chases him and he makes a wood sword from a tree to fight the zombie. But be sure to use words from the list.

And ChatGPT spat out…

ChatGPT: Steve is the main character in Minecraft. He's a brave adventurer. One day, Steve found himself in a new world. The sun was setting, and the night was approaching.
...

It goes on with about the same style of writing. They style being to use words that my son couldn’t possibly read.

I responded with…

Me: Rewrite it, and remove the words that aren't on the lists I gave you

Chat GPT apologized, and spat out the exact same story. Word for word.

So I called it out on it’s shenanigans…

Me: Are these words on these lists: main, character, brave, adventurer, found, himself, world, setting, approaching?

This time, ChatGPT rewrote the story, using only the words in my list. And it did so in the most passive-agressive way.

ChatGPT: I apologize for the oversight. None of the words you mentioned are on the lists you provided. Let me revise the story, removing these words and using only the words from the specified lists:

Title: "Steve's First Night in Minecraft"

Steve is the in Minecraft. He's a. One day, Steve in a new. The was, and the was.

Steve was not. A was. It made a sound as it. Steve to. He had to the first in this.

...

Oh, it was more than 2 paragraphs. ChatGPT gave me an entire page long story like that. I could feel it’s disdain for me.

So I wrote the story myself. But since I spent time gathering the lists, and checking ChatGPT’s work to see what words were not on the list, I was much better prepared.

The Trial

I printed the story out using the OpenDyslexic font. My son came downstairs begging to watch Mission Impossible 5.

“Sure,” I said. “You just need to do your reading first.”

“UGH!”

“Ouch! You hurt my feelings! I wrote this story just for you.”

“Fine!” He grumbled.

I made him put on his blue Finger Guided Reading Strip, which he hates. But he reads better when he uses it, so I make him use it whenever I can.

He started reading and immediately got stuck.

“Sss. Teh. Veh.” He looked at me.

“What does the silent ‘e’ do?”

“Sss. Tee. Vuh?” He looked at me again.

“Steve.”

He rolled his eyes, and continued for four more words, stopping on the word “Minecraft.”

“Why does it have to be so long!” he groaned.

“It’s only one page!”

“The word, Dad! The word! It’s sooooo long!”

“Look at it closely. Does it look familiar? You see it every day. You were even looking at it a few minutes ago.”

He squinted and turned the page sideways. Then turned it the other way, and slowly shook his head.

“Minecraft.” I said.

He side-eyed me, then looked back at the paper and reread the first sentence.

“Steve was a boy in Minecraft… YOU wrote a #Minecraft# story?” He said as if I had just done backhandsprings across the living room.

“Yes. #I# wrote a Minecraft story.” I replied.

His eyes got wide, and he turned back to the story. This time, he read without moaning, or complaining, or begging to take a break. Well, he did complain about the duck.

“It’s a chicken, Dad!”

“Chicken is a harder word! And I wanted to use the word ‘fly.’”

He still needed help in some places (that pesky letter ‘d’ and the silent e), but this was the best I’ve seen him read. And there wasn’t even a picture.

I think I’ll be writing more Minecraft stories.

But first, I went back to ChatGPT for a different kind of help. Did you know it can make word searches? I know there are plenty of tools to make them online, but I wanted to give it one more chance to be helpful. Tomorrow I’ll give my son a word search for the story.