New tool makes reading online articles easier for students

SINGAPORE – As a secondary school teacher, Mr Noah Zhang realized that it could be difficult to find suitable online articles that could be used as reading material for students, as most of them were aimed at adults.

Some students, especially those who need more literacy support, will often have to turn to their teachers to help simplify articles for them, she said.

Mr Zhang raised this issue in January during a hackathon organized by Open Government Products, an independent division of the Government Technology Agency (GovTech).

Chang Sau Sheong, deputy director-general of GovTech, told the Straits Times that he was impressed by the issue raised by Mr Zhang, who currently serves as a consultant in the Information Technology Department of the Ministry of Education (MOE).

“I reached out to Noah, and then we started talking about the problem: How can you help students read and better understand what they are reading?” said Mr. Chang.

It was this concern that led to the development of Simpler, an AI tool that encourages students to read more by simplifying difficult words and sentences online.

The Chrome browser extension rephrases sentences and breaks them into shorter chunks to make them easier to read.

By simply highlighting words on a web page, Simpler can display different versions of words and sentences to suit students’ preferred reading levels, making it easier to understand online content.

For example, Simpler can simplify the following sentence from an article on the National Library Board’s website in a variety of ways. “The spice trade brought Arab traders to Southeast Asia, which led to the spread of Arab cuisine into Indonesia and eventually Malaya.”

For those who have further reading difficulties, the sentence might read: “Traders from Arabia came to Southeast Asia. They were trading spices. They also brought their food. This food spread throughout Indonesia. It later spread to Malaya.”

For those with higher reading fluency, the sentence can be simplified as follows: “Arab traders came to Southeast Asia due to the spice trade. They brought Arab cuisine with them. This cuisine spread throughout Indonesia. Later, it also reached Malaya.”

Mr. Chang said he created the basic framework for what to Simplify overnight, then refined it further based on discussions with Mr. Zhang.

Now, a team from MOE’s Information Technology Division is working to develop the tool.

Simpler, which uses GPT-4o as its broad language model, was highlighted as a project under Singapore’s renewed Smart Nation 2.0 strategy, announced by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong on October 1.

The plan aims to equip people here with the skills to succeed in the digital economy, foster community spirit through digital inclusion, and build online safety and trust.