CASCADE READING MAKES
SYNTAX VISIBLE
Our approach builds on decades of cognitive and neurolinguistic research that point to a clear conclusion: Syntax is the backbone for language processing. It is through syntactic awareness that readers recognize the relationships between ‘do-ers’ and ‘do-ees’, and how the action and description words in a sentence affect each of them (or not). Syntactic structures provide the scaffolding for building a deeper understanding of the situation described in a text (a.k.a. Situation Model). By making these structures visible, Cascade Reading seeks to increase syntactic awareness and improve readers’ ability to produce appropriate prosody while reading (e.g. intonation, stress, phrasing, pauses, and rhythm), which lead to improved fluency and comprehension. We believe that these goals are relevant for all readers of all ages, including those with developmental challenges, attention limitations, foreign language learners, acquired communication disorders, or age-related cognitive decline.
Visit the website at Cascadereading.com!
Current Collaborators
Representative Publications
Van Dyke, J.A., Dempsey, J. (2026). Linguistically-driven text formatting improves reading comprehension: Evidence from 4th and 5th graders. Journal of Educational Psychology.
[publisher | pubmed]
Dempsey, J., Christianson, K., Van Dyke, J.A. (2025). Eye-tracking evidence for benefits from linguistically-driven text formatting while reading. Reading and Writing.
[publisher | pubmed]
Dempsey, J., Christianson, K., Van Dyke, J.A. (2024). Linguistically-driven text formatting improves reading comprehension for ELLs and EL1s. Reading and Writing.
[publisher | pubmed]
Patents
Acoustic-based Linguistically-driven automated text formatting Granted: 03/18/25
US 12,254,870 B2
Inventors: Van Dyke, J.A., Gorman, M., Lacek, M.
Linguistically-driven automated text formatting Granted: 11/09/21
US 11,170,154 B1
Inventors: Van Dyke, J.A., Gorman, M., Lacek, M.
Also in force in Australia (AU 2022255037 B2), Israel (IL 307467 B2),
Japan (JP 7541422 B2), Korea (KR 102754856 B1), Mexico (MX/A/2023/011943)
Linguistically-driven automated text formatting Granted: 08/02/23
US 11,734,491 B2
Inventors: Van Dyke, J.A., Gorman, M., Lacek, M.
Continuation of US11,170,154 B1 to cover machine learning methods of generating Cascades.
Also in force in Japan (JP 2024152832 A)
Linguistically-driven automated text formatting Granted: 10/2025
US 12,456,002 B2
Inventors: Van Dyke, J.A., Gorman, M., Lacek, M.
Continuation of 11,734,491 to cover generalized machine learning methods of generating Cascades.
Generating cascaded text formatting for electronic documents and displays Granted: 09/10/24
US 12,086,532 B2
Inventors: Gorman, M., Lacek, M., Riaz, K. Van Dyke, J.A.
Cascading text in Augmented Reality Devices
Also in force in Germany (DE21021000356)
Linguistic Learning Using Automatically Cascaded Text Filed: 08/21/2023
Van Dyke, J.A., Gorman, M., Lacek, M.