Embodied Learning: A moving way to learn your ABCs

In August, we shared an article from Edutopia on fostering visual-spatial skills, in part through movement. Now we’re passing along a very brief Edutopia video showing how movement also supports emerging literacy. The video focuses on a 2022 study by Linn Damsgaard et al which looked at how ‘embodied learning’ can help children learn — and remember — letter-sound pairs and word decoding. The study randomly assigned 5- and 6-year-old children to be taught either with whole-body movements, hand movements, or no movements. In the whole body movement group, "Kids moved like a snake as they hissed the sibilant sss sound or quickly snapped their body into the shape of a Y and paired the movement with the yuh sound. The other classes made hand gestures while sounding out words—or sounded out letters without any movement while reading along at their desks." Children with more advanced motor skills did no better or worse than other children but motor movements did aid learning and retention. After 90 minutes of instruction per week across 8 weeks, children in both the movement group and gesture group outperformed the desk learners, and the movement group had 30% better recall of letter-sound pairings than the hand gesture group. The new skills were sustained when retested with no further intervention up to 22 weeks later. Researchers noted children in the movement group were more likely to use movement when asked to recall sound-letter pairs after the intervention had ended. What ways do you use movement to reinforce learning? Share in the comments.

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