How Literacy Leap Uses AI

Literacy Leap uses artificial intelligence to write practice materials, mostly short decodable stories, that match the phonics skills your child is ready to read and a topic you or your child chooses.

AI is a writing tool here. It is not a tutor, not a chatbot, and not a decision-maker. A caring adult stays in charge of every session, and the same practices apply when a library, school, or other organization provides your access.

When an adult asks for new practice materials, we may use AI to draft:

• Short decodable stories on a topic the adult or child chooses
• Revisions that keep those stories within the phonics skills the child is ready to read
• Comprehension questions about a generated story
• Word lists, practice sentences, and similar lesson items matched to the child's current skill
• Writing activity prompts on a topic the adult or child enters

• Children do not have their own AI chat and never talk to a model
• AI does not decide what your child should learn. Placement comes from an adult-administered phonics assessment, and the skill sequence is a fixed, research-aligned scope and sequence
• AI does not recommend library books or kits. Those matches are mapped by our team to an institution's collection when that feature is enabled
• AI does not score the assessment, assign grades, or replace a librarian, teacher, tutor, or caregiver
• AI is not used for advertising, for marketing to children, or to build a profile of a child

Literacy Leap is designed for an adult and a child to use together. Children do not get their own Literacy Leap logins. The adult signs in, enters or confirms the topic, reviews the generated text, and can generate a new version. Literacy Leap is not meant to be used by a child unsupervised.

Generated stories are written from the phonics skills and allowable words for your child, then checked and revised so the text stays within what your child is ready to decode. If a story is not a good fit, the adult can simply generate another one.

We take extra steps so generated stories stay appropriate for children learning to read with an adult:

• Topic checks block profanity, slurs, sexual content, self-harm language, graphic violence, and similar requests before a story is generated
• The checks also catch attempts to disguise a blocked word by spacing out or substituting characters
• Typed topics cannot include web addresses or email addresses, and cannot contain instructions that try to override the writing instructions we send the model
• The writing instructions tell the model to produce a simple, cheerful story and to substitute an everyday topic if the request is not appropriate
• Adults see the story before the child reads it and can generate a new one

No automated filter is perfect. If a story still feels off, generate again or skip that topic. Contact us if something should not have appeared.

Story generation is provided by Anthropic (Claude), a United States company, under a commercial API. We send Anthropic:

• The story or writing activity topic entered by the adult or child
• Your child's phonics skill objectives (target skills, review skills, focus words, and allowable word lists) based on their assessment results and learning progress
• The generated text itself, when we ask the model to revise a passage so it stays decodable or to write comprehension questions about it

We do not send your child's name, age, or grade, and we do not send library card numbers or patron PINs.

One important caveat: anything typed into an open topic box is sent exactly as written. If an adult or child types a name or a personal detail into a topic, that text goes to Anthropic along with the rest of the request.

We store generated stories and related practice text in Literacy Leap so the adult can use them during a lesson, revisit them later, review progress, or ask us for support. We do not sell this information. The full picture is in the Literacy Leap Privacy Policy, including how to delete a student profile or an entire account.

When a library, school, or other organization offers Literacy Leap, these same AI practices apply. The institution authenticates eligible adults and may view program-administration reports about how the program is being used. Chronicle LLC remains the operator of Literacy Leap and the party responsible for how AI generation is run.

When you enroll a student, you acknowledge that some instructional materials are generated with AI and that student data is not used to train AI models. You can review, correct, or delete a student's information at any time, as described in the Literacy Leap Privacy Policy.

There is not a separate "AI off" mode, because personalized decodable text is how these practice activities work - a story that matches one child's exact skills has to be written for that child. Families who would prefer their child not use AI-generated practice materials should not enroll.

If you have questions about how AI is used in Literacy Leap, or if a generated story ever seems inappropriate, email support@decodablereads.com - we want to know.