Leveraging AI to Enhance CASAS STEPS Reading Test Preparation: A Guide for Educators

by Susan Coulter, OTAN Subject Matter Expert

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The CASAS STEPS Reading test has been approved as the primary tool to measure progress and ensure accountability for adult English as a Second Language (ESL) students in California. This shift has left many teachers wondering about the most effective strategies to prepare their students for this important test.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming education by serving as a digital tutor that’s both responsive and adaptable. Through AI, learning becomes more engaging, efficient, and personalized to meet each student’s unique needs. Teachers can use AI to create practice questions, develop study resources, and design lesson plans tailored to their students. In this approach, teachers become designers and "prompt engineers," guiding AI to generate helpful resources.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the process of crafting clear, effective prompts for AI, enabling it to create a practice test specifically for the CASAS STEPS Reading exam. We’ll also explore how AI can help generate additional resources to support student study.

CASAS STEPS Reading Level

To get started, you’ll need to determine the CASAS STEPS Reading Test level that’s best suited for your students. When your students first enrolled, they took a pretest to assess their initial skills, and they’ll soon take a posttest to measure progress. Your CASAS Coordinator can provide the Next Suggested Test Report, which will help you identify the most appropriate level for your students based on their pretest results.

For this guide, we’ll use Level C as an example but be sure to select the level that best matches your students’ needs according to the report.

1. CASAS Competencies

   On the CASAS STEPS Reading page, you'll find several helpful documents that outline what is covered and how students are tested. One key resource is the Reading STEPS Competency Blueprint, which breaks down the test’s Competency Areas and shows the percentage of questions dedicated to each area. This blueprint provides a clear overview of the focus areas for each level, allowing you to tailor your preparation strategies based on the specific competencies emphasized on the test.

   

   Think about your course outline and the specific topics you’ll be covering. What will you be teaching at the time? For Level C, 31% of the CASAS STEPS Reading test questions focus on Consumer Economics. To align with this, I have selected Competency 1.4, which is about understanding methods and procedures to obtain housing and related services. By focusing on this competency, you can ensure that your instruction is directly relevant to a key area of the test, maximizing your students' preparedness and familiarity with real-world topics they'll encounter in the assessment.

2. CASAS Content Area

   

   In the Reading STEPS Content Standard Blueprint for Level C, you’ll find a breakdown of Content Areas and the percentage of test items allocated to each. For Level C, the CASAS test focus is on skills such as Vocabulary, Details, Main Idea, and Inference. These are the types of questions I plan to have AI generate. Since understanding Details is a significant part of reading comprehension, I may choose to specify that AI creates a higher proportion of questions focused on this skill to align with the test’s emphasis and ensure students get ample practice in this area.

3. CASAS Task Area

   

   The final element to consider is the Task Area. For the Level C test, more than half of the items use various types of text, including emails, articles, and narratives. It’s a good idea to start with one of these formats, and you can easily change the task type as needed. To fully prepare your students, you’ll want to expose them to multiple types of reading tasks. For this example, I’ve chosen to begin with an article, which will help familiarize students with a common format they’ll encounter on the test.

My AI Prompt

“I am an English as a Second Language teacher, and I want to help my students prepare for the CASAS STEPS Level C Reading test addressing competency 1.4 Understand Methods and procedures to obtain housing and related services. Create a medium-length article suitable for NRS levels 3 and 4. The passage should be engaging and suitable for adult learners. After the article, please create 10 multiple-choice questions that assess the following: Vocabulary, Key Details, Main Idea, and Inference. Ensure that the questions are challenging but appropriate for the specified NRS Levels. Provide answers for each question.”

Educating AI

To optimize our AI platform’s effectiveness in generating relevant practice materials, it's crucial to familiarize it with as much information as possible about the CASAS Reading STEPS test. On the CASAS Reading STEPS page, I downloaded four key documents to guide our AI:

Reading STEPS Content Standard Blueprint – Provides details on content areas and question distribution.

Reading STEPS Competency Blueprint – Lists the competencies assessed at each level.

Reading STEPS Task Area Blueprint – Describes the types of tasks, such as articles or narratives, that students will encounter.

Reading STEPS Sample Items by Test Form Level – Offers examples of test items by level, which can serve as models for generating similar practice questions.

These resources will help guide the AI to create questions and study materials that closely reflect the actual test content, ensuring more targeted and effective preparation for our students.

AI Platforms

With the growing number of AI platforms available, each one offers unique features and limitations. When preparing to use AI for creating CASAS Reading STEPS practice materials, you can choose any platform that allows document uploads, although some may have limits on the number or size of documents. I experimented with several different platforms and observed varying levels of success in document processing and content generation. It's worthwhile to try a few options to see which one best meets your needs for document integration, prompt clarity, and overall usability.

Chat GPT
ChatGPT was my first choice for this project; however, I was only able to upload three documents with the free version. I could upload all four with the premium version.

Magic School AI
Initially I used Magic School AI and their app called Chat with Docs. Currently you can upload up to two documents and have an AI powered chat based on the resource uploaded.

Claude AI
Claude AI allowed me to upload all four documents and gave a link to the practice test. Claude recognized that there were a greater number of questions on the test that focused on key details and gave more practice on the topic of key details. The limited free plan has a limit of 15,000 characters per month that can be used across all conversations. Each response counts towards the 15,000-character limit.

Google Gemini
Google Gemini is another versatile AI platform, capable of analyzing a range of common file formats, including .doc, .docx, .pdf, and .txt. This flexibility allows it to handle various document types, making it a strong option for creating and analyzing CASAS Reading STEPS practice materials. However, to upload documents, you need to switch or upgrade to Gemini Advanced, which may involve additional costs. For those looking for comprehensive file compatibility, the upgrade could be beneficial for accessing Gemini’s full capabilities.

Copilot
Copilot is another AI platform I considered, but its free version does not allow document uploads. When I logged in with my school account, I encountered an additional limitation: an error message stating, “The number of files you are trying to add exceeds the maximum limit. Copilot currently supports adding 1 file at a time.” This restriction makes it challenging to work with multiple CASAS Reading STEPS documents simultaneously, limiting its usefulness for creating comprehensive practice materials.

Claude
I will use Claude AI to demonstrate how you can effectively prepare your students for the CASAS Reading STEPS test. This demonstration uses the free version, which has a monthly character limit of 15,000 characters—each response counts toward this total. If this limit becomes restrictive, you could switch to another AI platform, such as ChatGPT. For more streamlined document handling, consider combining all documents into a single file using a tool like Adobe Acrobat Pro. You can access a consolidated PDF containing all four documents through this link: https://bit.ly/CASASSTEPS.

First you will need a Claude.AI account

1. Go to https://claude.ai/login
   

   

2. Set up a free account. I found it easiest to Continue with Google. It will then ask you to choose an account.
   

   

3. Once you are in Claude.AI, upload all four documents from the CASAS Website by using the paperclip, and then enter your prompt.
   

   

   
   

   

4. Press return to generate your practice test
   

   

5. Click the document to open the task with practice questions.
6. Be sure to review the content. AI can make mistakes and is known to “hallucinate” at times.
   

   

7. If you do not like the response or feel it is incorrect, you can select “Retry” at the bottom of the response.
8. I found it easiest to copy and paste the response to a document so the formatting for the questions is vertical and more like the actual test.

Apply a New Task

Initially, I requested a Housing Article for my students to practice with. However, this time, I’d like them to work with a Housing Ad instead. You don’t need to restart the process—simply prompt the AI to create a Housing Ad rather than an article. This quick adjustment allows students to practice interpreting different types of reading material without significantly changing the setup.

Lesson Planning

Now that the AI is familiar with the content for the practice material, we can move on to creating a targeted lesson plan to teach these skills. By leveraging the information from the CASAS Reading STEPS documents and the practice material type (e.g., Housing Ad), we can prompt the AI to design a lesson plan that focuses on the specific competencies and content areas relevant to the test. This lesson plan can guide students through interpreting ads, understanding key details, and applying vocabulary skills in context.

“Please create a 60-minute lesson plan to teach this material to NRS level 3 and NRS level 4 students in the WIPPEA format (Warm-up, Introduction, Presentation, Practice, Evaluation, and Application). Please include interactive activities that are engaging and focused on the learning goal.”

Modifying the Lesson Plan

As the designer or prompt engineer of this lesson plan, remember that you have control over the details AI generates. Feel free to ask AI to rewrite any section or to provide additional information if needed. Here’s an example of a prompt to enhance vocabulary learning:

“Please identify the key vocabulary students must know for understanding a Housing Ad and suggest an activity or game to help them learn and retain these terms.”

This prompt will allow AI to generate a list of essential vocabulary and provide an engaging activity or game, such as a matching game, role-play scenario, or vocabulary bingo, tailored to reinforce the words in a fun, interactive way.

Creating a Worksheet

To provide students with extra practice, you can easily create a take-home worksheet that reinforces the skills they’re developing in class. Here’s a prompt to help AI generate the worksheet:

“Please create a worksheet that student can take home to practice their skills.”

This prompt will help AI generate a worksheet tailored to the skills required for the CASAS Reading STEPS test, allowing students to reinforce their learning at home.

There is so much you can do with AI to help your students prepare for the CASAS STEPS Reading test. Here are just a few ways AI can support your classroom:

1. Create Practice Test Questions – Design questions with specific tasks, content areas, and competencies that align with your students’ needs.
2. Develop a Lesson Plan – Generate a structured plan to teach the skills and concepts essential for the CASAS test.
3. Produce Worksheets for Reinforcement – Create worksheets that strengthen vocabulary and comprehension skills covered in your lesson.

As the designer, you have control over the content and activities AI generates. Don’t hesitate to ask for additional information, alternative activities, or further customization to meet your students' needs. I encourage you to give AI a try—it's a powerful tool that can truly transform your classroom planning and make preparation for the CASAS STEPS test more efficient and effective.