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Writer's pictureShawna Audet

Is the Magic School's Free Text Leveler and Decodable Text Generator Worth the Hype? A Comprehensive Review

 



I am always on the lookout for tools that help to level the playing field for struggling readers in the regular classroom.  Magic School is a website, which does just that.  This website will have your teacher toolbox of adaptive tools overflowing.  Best of all, has a free membership option.  

 

Within this single platform, there are over 70 AI tools for teachers and over 40 AI tools for students.  Examples of literacy tools include a text leveler, decodable text generator, text translator, text summarizer, text rewriter, text proofreader, and a text scaffolder. Of all the literacy tools, the text leveler is the one that has the potential to have a powerful positive impact on my students who are struggling with literacy.  The text leveler tool gives classroom teachers an uncomplicated way to provide multiple levels of the same text to a class. 


I opened the text leveler tool and chose “Grade 5.” Next, I pasted a grade 10 level text into the field. In seconds, the text leveler rewrote it at a grade 5 level. The text that I pasted in the text leveler tool was a one-page article about coral reefs.  I chose that article because a grade 10 student who struggles with literacy brought it to me to show me that her assigned reading in science class was far above her reading level. The student was correct.  That sheet was about five levels too high.  When the text leveler rewrote the article, it was a perfect level for the student.  She read it and understood it.  The text leveler version of the coral reef article did a decent job of keeping the main ideas from the original article.  The only problem was that the question sheet that the teacher created about coral reefs had questions that perfectly matched the original text but were less obvious (due to the reworded of the text) in the text leveler version.  For this reason, it is best practice for teachers to use the text leveler and create questions that match the levelled text instead of making the student use a question sheet that is based on the original higher level text.

 

When I used the Magic School decodable text generator tool, the results were disappointing.  It does generate decodable text, but it is a limited tool when you are using the free version.  The free version lets you choose the focus of the decodable text from a pull-down menu.  Then, it spits out three sentences. If you want to refine the text, you need to buy a website subscription. There are other free decodable text generators out there that do a better job, so I won't use this Magic School tool again.

 

Magic School is a website has enough literacy related AI tools to fill a teacher’s toolbox.  The text leveler tool is immensely powerful because it gives students who struggle with reading a way to access their learning in the regular classroom.  Other tools, like the decodable text generator, are less useful (at least to those who only have a free subscription).  I have only scratched the surface at Magic School.  I will be going back there to try out more tools.  If you go there too, leave a comment below to let me know what you think about the Magic School tools.

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