Recently, my nine-year-old was tasked with learning a set of twenty spelling words. Her teacher had provided her with some excellent practice sheets, but it quickly became apparent that she was going to need some additional study material in order to master these new words.

I turned to ChatGPT (new window) for help, and after experimenting with a few different prompts, I was very impressed with the results. So, for today’s e-bulletin, we are going to learn how to use ChatGPT to generate supplemental study material.

First, I entered the list of study words onto my computer so that I could easily copy and paste them into ChatGPT. Then, I went to chatgpt.com and signed in. The signing in part is important because without signing in, ChatGPT is limited in the types and formats of activities it can provide. Then, I typed in the following prompt:

“Turn the following words into a printable worksheet” and pasted in the list of relevant words.

Within seconds, the chatbot generated a missing letters style worksheet featuring the words I provided. It also came up with a bonus challenge to use three of the listed words in a sentence.

I downloaded the document, printed it out, and my daughter quickly got to work on her homework. In total, it probably took me ten minutes to go from concept to execution.

Of course, creating spelling worksheets is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what ChatGPT can provide for supplemental study materials. Let’s take a look at some more prompts that could be used:

For Study Sheets:

• Prompt: “Make a one-page study sheet summarizing Grade five science about the water cycle, with diagrams and bullet points.”
• Prompt: “Make a study sheet with twenty vocabulary words from Charlotte’s Web with definitions and example sentences.”
• Prompt: “Create a math reference sheet with the main formulas for area and perimeter, with simple examples.”

For Homework:

• Prompt: “Write ten practice problems for multiplying fractions with answer key at the bottom.”
• Prompt: “Make a fill-in-the-blank worksheet for Grade four history about early explorers.”
• Prompt: “Create a matching activity for Grade two where kids match animals to their habitats.”

The best part is, if the answer that ChatGPT gives you isn’t exactly what you wanted, it’s incredibly easy to make adjustments to the finished product. For example, you can adjust the difficulty of the work by asking the chatbot to make it easier, or more challenging. You can also ask it to incorporate themes that are meaningful to your child. For example, you could type “re-do that and incorporate Minecraft themes into the worksheet”. For children with print-based disabilities, you can specify the area that your child struggles with and ask the chatbot to re-adjust the worksheet accordingly. For example, you could ask:

“Could you create a worksheet that is easier for my child with dysgraphia?”

When I tested this, the response that I got was:

“Absolutely! Thanks for sharing that your child has dysgraphia—that helps a lot. The key is to make worksheets low-stress for writing, more visual, and choice-based, so your child doesn’t feel overloaded by handwriting. Here are some features I’ll build in:”

• Multiple-choice or circling instead of long written answers
• Fill-in-the-blank with only one or two words
• Matching with lines or arrows
• Big, clear fonts and lots of space between items
• Option to answer orally if that’s easier

There are so many options when it comes to using ChatGPT to generate worksheets and study materials, and I feel like this article is just barely scratching the surface of what is possible. With just a little creativity in your prompts, ChatGPT can become a powerful tool for making homework more effective, accessible, and hopefully even a little bit more fun.

This post originally appeared on the AT Help Desk (new window) website.