ReadEasy

Dense readings, made readable. Paste any class handout and get short sections, plain sentences, and read-aloud text. Share one link; students never log in.

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Inspiration

About one in five students can't get through the readings teachers hand out: dense paragraphs, long sentences, small print, no help. Teachers have no time to rewrite every handout, and students with dyslexia or below-grade reading levels get left behind. We wanted one tool that fixes the handout itself, with no accounts for students.

What it does

Paste or upload any class reading (PDF, Word, photo, text) and ReadEasy turns it into:

  • Short, titled sections with a one-line "In short"
  • Plain and Simple reading levels, with a readability grade for each. The lab handout in our demo drops from about grade 12.6 to 4.7.
  • Read-aloud with the current sentence highlighted. Tap any sentence to start there.
  • Tap-a-word syllables, plus reading settings saved on the device: font (Atkinson Hyperlegible, Lexend, OpenDyslexic), size, spacing, and background.
  • Fact Guard: every number, date, name, and key term in the original is checked against each rewrite. If something is dropped, the teacher is told exactly what before publishing.
  • One class link, a projector QR page, and a class code. Students never log in.

How we built it

Next.js 16 and React 19 on Vercel, with Postgres (Neon) and row-level security. A rule-based rewriter runs in the browser for the landing-page demo and on the server for published materials, so it works with no API key and no cost. Setting an Anthropic API key switches rewriting to Claude, checked by the same Fact Guard. Readability uses text-readability, with sbd for sentence splitting and syllable/hyphen for syllable breaks. The design follows the research: read-aloud with highlighting, wide spacing, and short lines. "Dyslexia fonts" and colored overlays are offered only as preferences, never as a cure.

Challenges

  • Keeping the rewriter from changing facts, which led to Fact Guard.
  • Rule-based rewriting is still rough on some sentences; Claude mode is better at the Simple level.
  • Moving from an in-process database to hosted Postgres exposed bugs (JSON being stored as text, and role permissions) that our tests only caught once we ran against the real database.

What we learned

Accessibility works best when the student does nothing: no account, no setting to hunt for, just a link.

What's next

Better rewriting quality, more languages, and quick-check questions after each section.

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