Whole-body movement teaching improves 5–6-year-olds' letter-sound naming more than non-motor teaching, immediately and at 17–22-week retention¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3 · i3 large
Currency · newest study 2022 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i3 The whole-body movement group improved letter-sound naming significantly more than the control group from T1 to T2 (p < 0.001, d = 2.8) and from T1 to T3 (p < 0.05, d = 0.7). → Linn Damsgaard 2022

Evidence¶

Linn Damsgaard 2022¶

Linn Damsgaard, Anne-Mette Veber Nielsen, Anne Kær Gejl, Anne Sofie Bøgh Malling, Søren Kildahl Jensen, Jacob Wienecke. (2022). Effects of 8 Weeks with Embodied Learning on 5–6-Year-Old Danish Children's Pre-reading Skills and Word Reading Skills: the PLAYMORE Project, DK. Educational Psychology Review (2022) 34:1709–1737. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-022-09671-8

q3 · i3 · causal · r2

Three-armed RCT (74 CON, 40 HM, 35 WM) of 5–6-year-olds in an 8-week phonics intervention; linear mixed models with group-time interactions. WM beat CON on naming letter-sounds with "p < 0.001, d = 2.8" post and "p < 0.05, d = 0.7" at retention.

"A between-group analysis showed that WM improved their ability to name letter-sounds correctly significantly more than CON both from T1 to T2 (CONT1–T2 = 82% versus WM T1–T2 = 167%, p < 0.001, d = 2.8) and from T1 to T3 (CONT1–T3 = 120% versus WM T1–T3 = 183% p < 0.05, d = 0.7)"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Alphabet Knowledge and Print Awareness — outcome: instruction changes it
• Decoding — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Both hand-movement and whole-body teaching improve naming of conditional letter-sounds post-intervention; the hand-movement advantage persists at retention — related
• Eight weeks of embodied letter-sound teaching produced no transfer effect on word reading in 5–6-year-olds — related
• Whole-body movement teaching improves matching of conditional letter-sounds to letters at retention compared with non-motor teaching — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• A 4-week embodied learning intervention with movement-phonemes improves grade 1 children's letter-sound knowledge more than regular classroom teaching — related
• MAST significantly improves language in four-to-five-year-old children (d = 0.2) — related