When AI chatbots reached the classroom, one teacher made a quick rule. Essays would now be written by hand, in class. The hosts of a podcast on dyslexia and AI tell what happened next. Students with typing and spell-check in their learning plans lost both. If your child’s ideas reach the page through a keyboard, your worry is fair.
FROM THE VIDEO
Key moments from Dyslexia and AI on the Dyslexia Explored podcast, with assistive-tech trainer Craig Steele:
Common questions from parents
Is it cheating if my child uses AI for schoolwork?
What kind of AI feedback should my child ask for?
The school wants handwritten essays because of AI. What about my child’s typing support?
Is a free screener enough to get my child an accommodation?
One teacher's no-laptop rule to stop AI cheating took typing and spell-check from kids who had them in their learning plans. What to ask if your school tries it.
Is Using AI Cheating, or Is It Help?
It depends on who does the thinking. Craig Steele trains teachers to use these tools. On the podcast, he gives a plain rule. Do not ask AI to write the thing from nothing. Write or say your rough points first. Then ask the AI to check them for clarity, tone and flow. Read what it says, and learn from it. His point is that the tool helps the writer. It does not replace the writer.
We ask the same question about any support. The question was never ‘accommodation: yes or no.’ It’s ‘is this support building the skill, or replacing the expectation that it gets built?’ AI that writes the essay replaces the work. AI that points to one muddled sentence keeps your child writing. Your child makes the fix. This one-page guide to AI that builds skills sets out that test.
Some of the help is already on your phone. Craig points to tools built into phones and tablets:
- A voice memo that turns into text with one tap.
- A screen that reads text out loud.
- Dictation built into the keyboard.
There is nothing to install. Teachers told him the old tools marked a child out. Now every child in the room has the same feature. In our experience, a child who feels singled out pushes the tool away. We walk through these built-in tools on your child’s device in more detail.
AI that writes the essay replaces the writer; AI that names one fix keeps your child writing.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Why Does Fast Feedback Matter for a Child Who Struggles to Write?
Here is the usual loop. Your child writes a story. Two weeks later it comes back in red ink. Craig describes what the child thinks then: did I even write this? By that point the child has lost touch with the work. The notes mean little.
AI changes the timing. Your child gets a reply while the story is still fresh. That is a real gain. But fast is not the same as helpful. Kluger and DeNisi (1996) looked across a large set of feedback studies. Feedback did not always help. In some studies it made people do worse.
So what kind helps? In our reading of this research, helpful feedback is about the task. It tells your child what to do next. Feedback that only judges tends to backfire. Think of a grade or a red X. In our view, that matters even more for a child who already struggles. We gathered more of what studies found about learning software in one place.
This is where the podcast’s own example needs a nudge. Craig had students ask AI to mark an essay. They fixed it and asked again. They watched the score climb. We would steer it another way. Skip the score. Ask for one next step. Your child could try one of these:
- “What is one sentence I should make clearer?”
- “Where does my story lose the reader?”
- “What should I fix first?”
Key takeaways
- Write first, then ask: Your child gets the ideas down; AI points to what to fix next.
- A next step beats a score: In our view, one named fix teaches more than a climbing grade.
- Watch the no-laptop rule: Ask how typing and spell-check supports carry over to in-class essays.
What If the School Takes the Keyboard Away Because of AI?
Back to the story from the start. The hosts describe students who were allowed to type their essays. Typing meant spell-check, so spelling mistakes did not hide their ideas. Then the rule changed to handwriting in class, because of ChatGPT. Craig’s view is that no workplace makes you write by hand like that. We do not know how common this is. It comes from one podcast, not a survey. It is still worth watching for.
Here is the honest case for the keyboard. Berger and Lewandowski (2013) tested a keyboard as a writing support with college students. Both groups wrote longer on a keyboard. Students who needed the support got no bigger boost than anyone else. That does not make the keyboard wrong. It means a handwritten test measures the handwriting, not the thinking. Read more about typing for kids who struggle to write.
If your child’s school changes how essays are done, ask a few questions early:
- “How will my child’s typing and spell-check support carry over to in-class writing?”
- “Is this task testing the ideas, or the handwriting?”
- “Is there a school laptop with no AI that my child could use?”
Our position is simple. We are not against technology. We are against technology that only looks like learning. AI that writes for your child only looks like learning. A tool that gets your child’s ideas onto the page is the real thing. So is a tool that names the next fix. Either way, it works beside the teaching and the people who know your child. It does not replace them.
A handwritten test measures the handwriting, not the thinking.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
You want your child’s ideas on the page, in your child’s own words. Testing that grades handwriting instead of thinking works against that. Nobody will ever advocate for your child as hard as you will. Our free screener asks what you see at home. It does not diagnose. Only a professional evaluation opens an IEP or 504 plan. Start with the free Dyslexia Screener, and bring your answers to school.
See what All Access gives your child
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You describe what you see at home. We turn it into a plan you start this week.
- Answer 5 short questionnaires about what you already notice, 30–45 minutes at your own kitchen table
- Your child sits no test and gets no score: nothing to schedule, nothing for them to dread
- You do the answering, the AI does the writing, and a person reviews it before it reaches you
- Access all 40+ courses instantly: reading, math, focus, processing and more, with new ones added regularly
Why we use AI, plainly: it writes from a knowledge base our team maintains and audits. We work through it line by line and pull anything the evidence stops supporting. The roadmap you get on Tuesday reflects what we corrected on Monday, and a human still reads it before you do.
Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
Your answers stay yours. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not hand identifiable assessment data to outside AI companies to train their models.
A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
