AI reading support for dyslexia
How AI-powered text-to-speech and instant explanations help people with dyslexia read online without exhaustion.
December 22, 2024
One in ten people has dyslexia. For them, reading online isn't just slower—it's exhausting. Words swim. Decoding takes conscious effort. By the end of a paragraph, you've forgotten the beginning.
Traditional accommodations help, but they often require special software that only works in specific environments. They don't follow you across the web.
What actually helps
Text-to-speech. Not the robotic voices from a decade ago—modern AI voices that sound natural. This isn't a workaround. For many people with dyslexia, listening while reading improves comprehension by 50% or more.
The value isn't just avoiding visual decoding. It's dual-channel processing. Eyes and ears working together. Each reinforcing the other.
Instant explanations. Hit an unfamiliar word and lose the thread of the argument. The traditional approach: stop reading, search the term, lose your place, struggle to recover context.
Better: highlight the word, get an instant simple explanation, keep reading. No context switching. No breaking flow.
Why it needs to be effortless
People with dyslexia already spend more cognitive energy on reading than neurotypical readers. Any friction in assistive tools—document uploads, mode switching, complex interfaces—means they won't use them.
The tools that work are invisible until needed. Browser extensions. Highlight and listen or highlight and explain. That's it.
What this enables
Education becomes more accessible. Job opportunities that require reading technical documentation become possible. Staying informed doesn't require twice the effort.
This isn't about making reading easy. Dyslexia doesn't go away. It's about removing unnecessary barriers so the difficulty comes from the material's complexity, not from the mechanics of reading.
The broader point
Accessibility tools that work for dyslexia often help everyone. Tired eyes benefit from text-to-speech. Complex jargon confuses neurotypical readers too. Good tools for accessibility are often just good tools.
The goal isn't accommodating disability. It's removing artificial barriers that shouldn't exist in the first place.