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AI-powered features

Reading Steps leverages artificial intelligence to create personalized, engaging reading experiences for students.

Book recommendations

The AI recommendation system analyzes:
  • Student’s reading history
  • Reading level and age
  • Genre preferences
  • What similar readers enjoy
This creates personalized book suggestions that match each student’s interests and abilities.

Reading assessments

How it works

The AI generates comprehensive 20-question assessments that:
  1. Start with simple word recognition (ages 4-6)
  2. Progress to sentence completion (ages 6-8)
  3. Advance to passage comprehension (ages 8-11)

Adaptive learning

After an initial assessment, the AI can generate “challenge” assessments that:
  • Analyze previous performance
  • Identify areas of weakness
  • Create targeted questions for improvement
  • Track progress over time

Assessment analysis

After completion, the AI provides:
  • Estimated reading age - Calculated from responses
  • Performance summary - Overview of strengths and weaknesses
  • Specific feedback - Areas to focus on for improvement

Book quizzes

For any book in the system, the AI can generate:
  • Comprehension questions about plot, characters, and themes
  • Age-appropriate difficulty levels
  • Multiple choice format with 4 options each
  • Immediate feedback on answers
Quiz questions cover:
  • Key plot points
  • Character understanding
  • Setting and context
  • Themes and messages

Book metadata

When a new book is added, AI helps by:
  • Generating descriptions
  • Determining appropriate age ranges
  • Categorizing by genre
  • Assessing content appropriateness

Content safety

AI-powered safety features include:
  • Appropriateness checking - Ensures books match student age levels
  • Content filtering - Flags potentially inappropriate material
  • Review moderation - Checks student reviews before publishing

Review scoring

Student book reviews are analyzed for:
  • Thoughtfulness and detail
  • Helpfulness to other readers
  • Appropriate content
  • Writing quality
Points are awarded based on review quality, encouraging students to write meaningful reviews.
All AI features use Google’s Gemini models through the Genkit framework for reliable, safe, and age-appropriate content generation.