Creating comprehension questions for multiple cohorts of students can be overwhelming. Learn how to use AI to solve the challenge.
Quick question.
How long does it take you to create a set of reading comprehension questions? Probably half an hour. Maybe an hour or two if the source material is new.
Now, when you need multiple sets for different groups, or you're short on time and resources, your usual method can become overwhelming or even impractical. If it keeps happening, it can lead to burnout.
In this post, you’ll learn how to use AI, including tools like ChatGPT, to streamline the process and create effective reading comprehension questions without the extra stress. We’ll discuss both the hard way and easy way.
Let’s get started.
Your usual process for this probably involves some basic factors:
Objective: Are you focusing on students' ability to recall information (literal comprehension), make inferences based on clues in the text (inferential comprehension), or form judgments and analyze deeper meanings (evaluative comprehension)?
Topic or subject: How appropriate is the topic for your students?
Your students’ reading level: Are your students beginners, intermediate, or advanced readers?
For example, when it comes to students in Grades 5–8, texts should challenge but not overwhelm them.
Question types: What types of questions can help you achieve the intended objective?
A balanced set of question types helps assess multiple levels of comprehension. Literal questions check for basic understanding; inferential questions evaluate interpretation skills; evaluative and analytical questions challenge critical thinking.
These considerations are essential in determining the overall structure and formatting of your comprehension question set, but your process will be more effective if you incorporate some strategic factors:
Curriculum: What curriculum or standards do the questions adhere to?
For example, you follow Common Core State Standards and want to ensure standards for an English Language Arts class. If you target CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.1, your questions should explicitly require students to find and explain evidence.
Adaptability: How can you make changes to the question set based on your students’ progress?
Not all students will respond to the same questions in the same way. If you plan for differentiation, you’ll be able to ensure accessibility and engagement across a diverse classroom or even multiple classrooms.
Reusability: What other teaching resources can you make from the question set? What if you wanted to use the questions in a presentation?
Repeatability of the process: How consistently and quickly will you be able to create more or similar comprehension questions? Chances are, you have to design questions for multiple classes.
Variety of source materials: This aspect can be a nightmare once in a while. Texts can come in many forms: narrative fiction, expository nonfiction, speeches, poems, or even multimodal sources with images, charts, or videos. So you may need to convert the material into a compatible format first.
Thinking about these factors in advance will give you clarity. It will also lay the foundation for a manageable workflow. That way, you don’t have to come up with a new method every time you prepare questions for your class. On that note, let’s try a practical exercise. While an AI-powered reading comprehension questions generator will be our primary tool, we’ll show you how to use traditional AI chatbots like ChatGPT as well.
For this exercise, we’re going with an online article from NASA: Who Was Neil Armstrong?
It’s appropriate for Grade 5 - 8 students. So they are the ones whose reading level we’ll test.
Your requirements will definitely be different, but you can use the same process.
1. Log in to or sign up for Monsha. (By the way, you can create an account for free.)
2. Once logged in, you'll see a list of different types of resources you can make, including Comprehension Questions. Select it.
3. On the next screen, you can assign your comprehension questions to a course, unit, or lesson. We don’t need it for this exercise, but this option is super useful if you manage your teaching materials with Monsha. It will basically keep your resources organized without extra effort.
4. Now comes the interesting part. With Monsha, you can use different sources for your comprehension questions, including a topic of your choice or a YouTube video. You can even combine multiple sources to make your question set more diverse!
For our exercise, we’re going with “Link from Internet”. All we have to do is copy-paste the NASA article link.
5. The next configuration screen is essential for setting your requirements. Worry not. You can do it with a few clicks!
These are the options we selected:
Grade: Grade 6
Language: English
What do you want to include in the Reading Comprehension Questions?:
How many questions?: 5 for each
Select difficulty levels: Easy
Just to give you a clear idea, you can select other question types, too. Such as:
You can start with only one question type, but as you’ve seen from our selection, you can include multiple types to make your question set more engaging.
Here’s another feature that can help you a lot. In case you need to differentiate your comprehension questions, you have the following options:
Based on our requirement, we have selected Bloom’s Taxonomy Levels: Understand.
You can specify more requirements by typing in additional instructions, but that is completely optional.
6. Click Generate, and your comprehension question set will be generated in seconds! This is what we got:
Not only does the output contain the types of questions we asked for, it also includes an adaptive passage based on the article. That way, we don’t have to spend extra time adapting the language for our students. What if we needed to change the language anyway? The next section will answer your question.
Most online question makers are good at producing random comprehension questions, and that is all you’d need in many cases. However, any question set you create with Monsha’s comprehension questions generator will significantly improve your workflow.
Here’s how.
Quickly customize your questions with clicks: Whether you want to include more question types or change the difficulty level or change the tone, you can do it without any kind of manual tweaking. The Quick Actions feature does all the work, saving you time.
Edit your questions to perfection: In case you want to make your question set a little more dynamic, you can use the editor to change the text format or add rich content like images, tables, and more. No need to copy-paste the content somewhere else and do the formatting there.
Adapt your questions to different student groups’ needs: As you’ve seen in this exercise, you can specify differentiated instruction when setting your requirements. The same feature is available to you even after your question set is generated. So you’ll be able to use the same questions to create other versions and support different cohorts of students, reducing your workload.
Export your comprehension questions in your preferred format: Save your questions in DOC, PDF, Google Forms quiz, or other formats. You can even export them to the quiz platform of your choice! As you may know, these platforms often require specific formatting for file uploads or imports. With Monsha, you don’t have to stress about it at all. It automatically does the formatting for you. No manual tweaking required on your side! So export your question set to the following options as needed (click on the links for details):
Create more resources based on the question set: The comprehension questions you generate with Monsha aren’t limited to a single activity. Say you need to find supplementary teaching materials based on these questions. You can do it with a few clicks whenever needed.
Last but not least, all your comprehension questions and other resources will remain accessible via your Monsha account. So you don’t have to sort different files and switch from one folder to another.
If you create reading comprehension questions using general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini or Copilot, it's really important that you use detailed prompts. This means giving the AI clear instructions that match what you want your students to learn.
Think about it like this: if you just say, “Make some questions based on this article,” AI tools don't know your students' grade level, what reading skills you're working on, or what type of questions you're expecting. But if you say, “Create five Grade 6 reading comprehension questions focusing on inference and vocabulary,” the AI will have a clear goal. You’re guiding it just like you would guide a student.
Teaching-focused prompts also help AI chatbots understand the kind of support your students might need. For example, if you work with students who need simpler language or extra help, you can include that in your prompt. The chatbot will then adjust its language or question types to better fit your classroom needs.
Using teaching language in your prompts also saves you time. You’ll spend less time editing the questions afterward because they’ll already be closer to what you need. It’s like giving the AI a lesson plan; it knows the structure, the goal, and the students it's meant for.
So, when you use any AI chatbot as a teacher with a clear purpose, you help it think like one too. And that leads to better, more effective comprehension questions for your students.
Let’s take a look at a few templates to get a better understanding of the process. Feel free to adapt them to your classroom requirements.
Create a set of [5-10] reading comprehension questions for Grade [X] students based on the following passage: [Insert or summarize passage here]. Include a mix of literal, inferential, and evaluative questions. Add a brief answer key.
Read the article from this URL: [Insert URL]. Create [Number of Questions] comprehension questions for Grade [X] students. Include 2 vocabulary-in-context questions, 2 literal questions, 2 inferential questions, and 2 open-ended questions. Provide an answer key with explanations.
Using the following passage: [Insert passage or URL], generate 3 levels of reading comprehension questions for Grade [X] students - basic, intermediate, and advanced. Each level should include 3 questions and focus on appropriate reading skills.
Based on this passage: [Insert passage], write [Number of Questions] reading comprehension questions for Grade [X] that assess specific skills: identifying main idea, supporting details, making inferences, understanding vocabulary in context, author’s purpose, and drawing conclusions.
Create a reading comprehension activity for Grade [X] students based on this passage: [Insert passage]. Focus the questions on analyzing theme, character development, and author’s craft. Include a short answer key.
Even with the use of general-purpose AI technologies, creating effective reading comprehension questions isn’t always quick or effortless. One of the main reasons is that getting high-quality results depends on how well you write your prompts. The more specific and detailed your instructions, the better the output, but crafting those detailed prompts takes time. That level of planning can sometimes feel like writing the questions yourself.
Another challenge is that you might find yourself going back and forth with AI chatbots to refine the results. Maybe the first set of questions is too easy, or the vocabulary is off, or the questions don’t quite match the skills you're teaching. Each time you revise the prompt, it adds minutes, and sometimes frustration, to the process. What was supposed to be a time-saver can turn into another task on your already full plate.
Lastly, if you're juggling grading, lesson planning, and classroom management, even a small extra step, like fine-tuning a prompt, can feel like a lot. While AI chatbots can lighten the load in the long run, the up-front effort to learn how to prompt well can make the process feel like more work at first. It takes practice to use it efficiently, and that learning curve can be a hurdle when you're already stretched thin.
At the end of the day, any process involving AI or other tools comes down to one thing: reducing your workload without compromising quality.
You want to save time on repetitive tasks so that you can find time to improve your overall teaching strategy and methods. That’s why you may consider a workflow that doesn’t come at the expense of your wellbeing. If you’re a teacher looking for an effective way to regularly create comprehension questions and other resources with AI, give Monsha a try.
AI for Teachers
We’re the Monsha Team—a group of educators, engineers, and designers building tools to help teachers combat burnout and get back to life.. Our blogs reflect real classroom needs, drawn from conversations with educators around the world and our own journey building Monsha.
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