Readefine wins Rep. John Garamendi’s 2025 Congressional App Challenge in California’s Eighth District

When asked what inspired the creation of Readefine, the students said, “The inspiration for Readefine began with a friend. In our first year of high school, our dear friend struggled with a learning disability. Despite their best efforts, teachers often dismissed their struggles, even being denied accommodations to their 504 plan. Our school simply told our friend, “Our school isn’t suitable for students like you.” Eventually, this lack of proper support forced them to leave our school altogether. That moment stayed with us. It wasn’t them who failed, it was the system.

“That personal experience became our emotional anchor and the driving force behind Readefine. It sparked a deeper look into the many educational inequities these impacted populations faced, especially in our district, West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD). WCCUSD, which lacks the capacity to correctly accommodate students—an issue worsened by low funding —comprises most of California’s 8th Congressional District. Our first step was researching the inequity around us: the lack of accommodations for students with dyslexia.

“By interviewing WCCUSD Director of Special Education, we learned about both the measures currently in place and the initiatives that local schools still require. Teachers reported spending up to 5 hours of their own time manually reformatting materials per week, either by printing out classwork packets on differently-colored paper or manipulating font types. This leaves their students waiting for the support they need. When we pitched our idea of an app that could automate this process, the director immediately validated its potential impact.

“Additionally, our team surveyed 28 special education educators and administrators within WCCUSD. The data reiterated our previous insights: 71% of teachers said they regularly modify materials for struggling readers, and 93% said they wished for an automated tool. Instead of creating another accommodation that acts as a workaround like currently available text-to-speech models (that 82.1% of responders already use), we wanted to make reading itself easier for students. From our data, we settled on Readefine’s priorities: using optical character recognition (OCR) technology to recognize phototext and apply specific text-based changes found through our research. Our app needed to be simple, fast, and meaningful.”