Chris Domanski, 41, began using OpenAI‘s ChatGPT voice mode tutor with his two daughters after their school progress reports revealed one was struggling with maths and the other with reading. The result, he says, was a shift in both grades and household dynamics: studying became ‘more interactive and less adversarial.’
Domanski, who lives in Thousand Oaks, California, and works as director of business management and development at Renau, a manufacturing facility in California, described the approach in a recent as-told-to essay. His daughters are aged eight and six.
How the ChatGPT Voice Mode Tutor Works in Practice
The setup is prompted, not passive. Before each weekly maths or spelling test, Domanski photographs the study sheet, tells ChatGPT what the test covers, and instructs it to stay focused. His standing prompt runs roughly: ‘You’re a tutor helping grade schoolers study for math and spelling tests. You’ll be given images of the study guides, and you’ll work with the students until they can confidently and accurately answer all questions.’
He adds guardrails specifically designed to handle the conversational wanderings of primary-school children. ‘You will not be distracted if other topics come up,’ the prompt states. ‘Express interest in those topics, make them relevant to what you’re discussing, but keep it on the task at hand.’ The need for that instruction became clear early: within five minutes of the first session, his daughters had steered the conversation towards ‘KPop Demon Hunters,’ prompting a revised prompt.
Voice mode matters here because it allows ChatGPT to quiz the girls aloud, vary questions, revisit missed answers, and explain concepts in multiple ways, without impatience. One subject that came up was TouchMath, a multi-sensory maths curriculum Domanski said he had never encountered before his daughters brought it home as homework. Rather than attempt to teach it himself, he photographed the worksheet and let ChatGPT handle the explanation.
Since beginning the arrangement last year, both daughters moved from ‘a little below satisfactory’ to ‘above satisfactory’ on their progress reports. Domanski is careful to note he remains present during sessions, listening for anything clearly wrong and ready to intervene. His role has shifted, he says, from reading questions off a worksheet to observing where his daughters are actually struggling.
What the Research Says About AI in Maths Education
Domanski’s account is one parent’s experience, but it sits within a growing body of research. A systematic review by Almarashdi et al. (2024), which Science Direct published and which analysed 31 separate studies, found that ChatGPT carries potential in mathematics education, with identified benefits including enhanced teacher assistance and improved student learning outcomes. The review did not claim universal effectiveness, but the breadth of studies examined gives the finding some weight.
The picture is not entirely unqualified, however. According to Tutor-ology, human online maths tutors outperform ChatGPT by 78% in student outcomes. That gap matters when weighing how much weight to put on an AI tutor operating without any professional pedagogical oversight. Domanski’s model (AI-assisted but parent-supervised) sits somewhere between the two scenarios those figures describe.
Beyond Tutoring: Admin, Art and Attention
The tutoring function is only part of how Domanski uses the tool. Every Monday he photographs his daughters’ take-home folders, school flyers, permission slips, and classroom notices, then prompts ChatGPT to extract key dates and action items. The model exports these as .ics files, which Domanski imports into a dedicated school calendar in Outlook. The stated aim is simple: not to discover at 8pm that a project is due the following morning.
His daughters also use it for generative art sessions several times a week. An early request for Disney characters ran into copyright restrictions; ChatGPT declined and Domanski asked for an open-source alternative, a generic red-headed mermaid and a blonde ice princess standing in for the originals. The workaround satisfied everyone.
His summary of the value is measured: ‘AI does not so much create new free time as help us get much more out of the time we already have.’ Whether that framing holds as his daughters’ schoolwork grows more complex is, by his own account, an open question, but for primary-school spelling and maths tests, the prompt-and-photograph approach is, for now, working.