Every day, something happens in the world your children should know about. A vote in Congress. A breakthrough in medicine. A conflict overseas. Graduated News takes today's real headlines and rewrites each story into six reading-level versions — from Grade 4 through Grade 12. Same facts. Same story. Written for where they are.
We use six tiers, each calibrated to a specific range of grade-level reading ability. Every story on Graduated News exists in all six versions. Each version is scored to a target range on the Flesch Reading Ease scale — an open, widely accepted readability standard.
| Level | Description | F-K Target |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 4 | Short sentences, common vocabulary, basic context provided | FRE 80–90 |
| Grade 5 | Slightly expanded vocabulary; cause-and-effect reasoning introduced | FRE 70–80 |
| Grade 6 | Multi-clause sentences; broader context assumed | FRE 60–70 |
| Grades 7–8 | Complex sentences, nuanced framing | FRE 50–60 |
| Grades 9–10 | Sophisticated vocabulary, analytical framing | FRE 30–50 |
| Grades 11–12 | Near-adult prose, full contextual depth | FRE < 30 |
These aren’t simplified versions with key words removed. They are fully rewritten articles.
The same story. Six reading levels. Every student reads the real news.
cientists found ice on the moon. It is hiding in dark craters near the south pole where the sun never shines. The ice has been there for a very long time — maybe billions of years.
This is big news because ice means water. Water is something people need to live. If astronauts go to the moon and stay for a long time, they could use this ice. They could drink it. They could also turn it into air to breathe.
NASA wants to send people back to the moon soon. Finding this ice makes that plan easier. Scientists are very excited.
nalysis published this week confirms what orbital observations had long suggested: the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar south pole contain water ice deposits at concentrations that could prove operationally viable for future crewed missions. The findings, derived from spectroscopic data collected across multiple instruments, resolve a significant uncertainty in NASA’s Artemis planning calculus.
The implications extend well beyond hydration. Water ice can be electrolyzed into hydrogen and oxygen — the latter critical for life support, the former for use as rocket propellant. In-situ resource utilization of this kind would fundamentally alter the logistics economics of extended lunar presence, reducing the tonnage that must be launched from Earth and, by extension, the cost and risk profile of sustained operations.
Competing geopolitical interests complicate the picture. The Artemis Accords, which govern cooperative exploration, do not resolve questions of resource extraction rights, and China’s parallel lunar program has identified the same polar regions as priority landing targets. The confirmation of high-value deposits sharpens what had been a largely theoretical competition.
“Every student deserves to read the same story. Just at the level that’s actually theirs.”
For a generation of parents, the evening news was a shared event. One television. Walter Cronkite at 6:30. Kids didn’t have a separate news — they had the news. That’s gone. Graduated News is a small attempt to fix that.
One family subscription covers every child in the household. Teacher accounts are free. The free tier exists and always will. We believe the ability to read and understand the news is not a premium feature. It’s a right.
— Sean Wood, Founder$60 / year or $6 / month
Free, always.