Chunking: Intervention designed to relieve and improve reading performance among dyslexic student

Objective: Dyslexia has been defined as an impaired ability to decode written language while reading and/or writing, and is thought to affect 10-15% of students. It has been suggested that people with dyslexia have more difficulties with visual decoding of text compared to other readers and is most prominent when reading a crowded text. “Chunking” is an intervention where extra spaces are added as visual cues in between morphemes and other units in words, within a reading text, with the aim of reducing visual interference. The aim of this study was to test if a chunking intervention can benefit dyslexic readers. Method: A sample of 37 Icelandic high school students was assigned to four groups: two groups including dyslexic students, and two groups consisting of non-dyslexic students. Participants received a reading text by e-mail, either with the intervention (2 groups) or with normal text (2 groups), to read daily for six days. All participants were tested on various reading tasks before and after the intervention. Results: When reading a normal text, the findings indicate that dyslexic readers receiving the chunking intervention read with significantly fewer errors than other readers, and showed an affirmative attitude towards the intervention Conclusion: Furthermore, the findings indicate that dyslexic college students can benefit from a relatively short training, consisting of reading a chunked text daily for a week