The Cognitive Benefits of Embodied Learning in the Context of Early School Literacy

Abstract

Reading is a complex, yet fundamental academic skill that school children are taught all over the world. Although, literacy learning relies on attentional and perceptual processing of visual and auditory inputs, it has been found to also benefit from embodied learning, e.g., motor activities as an integrated strategy to recognise and remember letters. We explored mechanisms and effects of integrated embodied activity in young school children (5-8-year-olds), in both a lab experiment (n=18) including electroencephalography and an applied setting (8-week school intervention pro-ject; n=144). The electroencephalographic experiment revealed that embodied activity stimulates attentional and perceptual processing compared to control (non-active) letter discrimination prac-tice and the school intervention study showed that early literacy educational outcomes were facilitated in children with an initial lower working memory performance. These novel results indicate that reinforcement of cognitive processing could be a candidate mechanism to explain the efficacy of embodied literacy learning.