The effectiveness of an intervention program -barton intervention program- on reading fluency of Iranian students with dyslexia

BACKGROUND: Difficulty with reading fluency has been increasingly acknowledged as a significant aspect of reading disabilities which is called dyslexia. To investigate this important issue, this research aims to examine the impact of an intervention program on reading fluency of dyslexic students. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The research is an experimental one. The population of the study included all the second- and third-grade male and female students in the city of Ilam, Iran, among whom 68 students were recognized to be dyslexic using a screening inventory reading test (IRT) developed by Shafiei et al., in 2009, they were selected using purposeful sampling method. The students were equally divided and assigned into a control and an experimental group. The experimental group received the Barton intervention program for 10 weeks. The reading fluency test was administered for the measurement of reading fluency in pre- and post-tests. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and paired t-test. RESULTS: The analysis of the finding through t-test found a statistically significant difference between the control and experimental groups after the intervention program at P < 0.01. CONCLUSIONS: The results revealed that the students who received the intervention program of the experimental group were improved in terms of their reading fluency.