AI Is Like 50% Good and 50% Bad
Abstract
The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) presents significant opportunities and challenges for literacy education. While existing research indicates that digital technology integration has enhanced and transformed student writing and creativity in various ways, the advent of GenAI introduces critical questions regarding its role in supporting elementary students’ writing. This article examines the potential and challenges of using GenAI to support students’ creation of children’s literature. Conducted over a 2-week unit at a multiage lab school, the project engaged students using GenAI for brainstorming, feedback, and creating images to support their writing. Analysis of student writing, interviews, and artifacts highlights both the advantages and drawbacks of employing GenAI, culminating in practical recommendations for teachers interested in leveraging GenAI to support student writing and storytelling.
APA Citation
LaMear, R. and von Gillern, S. (2025), “AI Is Like 50% Good and 50% Bad”: Exploring the Strengths and Challenges of AI in the Elementary Writing Classroom. Read Teach, 79: e70014. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.70014
Talk to Read and Write: Using Speech-Recognition Apps in a First-Grade Writing Center Language Arts
Full Talk to Read and Write Research Paper
Abstract
Language Experience Approach research indicates that students can make significant literacy strides when they read stories they dictate to teachers. However, in a classroom setting, it is unreasonable for teachers to take dictation from each student. Advances in speech recognition allows students to dictate to mobile devices and see their oral words magically transformed into written text. Students no longer have to wait for a teacher in order to see their personally meaningful, linguistically rich, culturally relevant compositions become written words. This is the story of my year as a teacher’s aide in a first-grade classroom where I supervised a writing center in which students used speech recognition apps on their iPads to compose. The purpose of this article is to share the pedagogical decisions I made, describe the affordances and challenges that emerged, and make recommendations that may support students who use apps to talk to read and write.
APA Citation
Talk to Read and Write: Using Speech-Recognition Apps in a First-Grade Writing Center
Language Arts, 96(6), 358-369 by Baker, E. A. (2019) http://www.ncte.org/journals/la/issues/v96-6
Apps, iPads, and Literacy: Examining the Feasibility of Speech Recognition in a First-Grade Classroom
Abstract
Informed by sociocultural and systems theory tenets, this study used ethnographic research methods to examine the feasibility of using speech recognition (SR) technology to support struggling readers in an early elementary classroom setting. Observations of eight first graders were conducted as they participated in a structured SR-supported writing center four days a week for five months. Participant observation, field notes, transcripts of audio and video recordings, and student artifacts (classroom worksheets, SR screenshots, and writing center compositions) were used to document students’ use of SR as they wrote assigned compositions. Data analysis was recursive and ongoing. Constant comparison of in actu theoretical notes was used to form provisional patterns and develop and refine hypotheses. Triangulation of data sets, triangulation of informants, and negative case analyses were used to (dis)confirm hypotheses. Findings indicate that using SR was supportive of these struggling readers. Previous concepts of SR as an isolated entity and of the Language Experience Approach as cumbersome and reifying teacher hegemony are examined. Graphosemantic awareness, new literacies, and the possibilities for supporting struggling readers of all ages across expansive geographies are discussed. Finally, child safety, tensions between student independence and lost opportunities for teacher metacognitive modeling, questions about encoding as a viable or antiquated skill, and the need for additional research conducted in classroom settings to grasp sociocultural insights are discussed.
APA Citation
Baker, E. A. (2017). Apps, iPads, and Literacy: Examining the Feasibility of Speech Recognition in a First-Grade Classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 52(3). https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.170
Closing the gap between oral lexicons and sight vocabulary: Examining speech recognition technologies
Abstract
Hey Siri, Alexa, Google, can you help me learn to read? Speech recognition apps can take dictation. Elementary, middle, high school students, and adults, who struggle to read can dictate to speech recognition apps and see their oral vernacular become written words. However, at the time of this study, speech recognition apps remained notoriously inaccurate. The purpose of this study was to examine whether first-graders who struggled to read would develop sight vocabulary for the words they dictated to speech recognition apps. If so, how did their speech recognition-generated words compare with words they might encounter in other texts? Conversely, did they use vocabulary represented on high-frequency word lists? Derived from a broader ethnographic study, for 4 months, students attended a classroom writing centre and used speech recognition apps to compose. Findings indicated that speech recognition inaccuracies were inconsequential to participants’ development of corresponding sight vocabulary. Within the timeframe and writing process used in the study, the students spontaneously generated a relatively low percentage of words they might encounter in other texts. However, speech recognition appeared to support students’ abilities to embrace personally meaningful oral language and transfer their linguistic and culturally diverse oral vernacular to sight vocabulary. Findings raise issues of ecological validity and the origins of sight vocabulary curricula.
APA Citation
Baker, E. A., & Bradley, C. (2021). Closing the gap between oral lexicons and sight vocabulary: The potential of speech recognition technologies. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798419851851