The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of embodied learning on children’s pre-reading and word reading skills. We conducted a three-armed randomized controlled trial including two intervention groups and one control group. One hundred forty-nine children from grade 0 (5–6 years old) who had just started school were recruited from 10 different classes from four elementary schools. Within each class, children were randomly assigned to receive teaching of letter-sound couplings and word decoding either with whole-body movements (WM), hand movements (HM), or no movements (CON) over an 8-week period. Children were evaluated on pre-reading, word reading, and motor skills before (T1), immediately after (T2), and after 17–22 weeks of retention period (T3) following the intervention. Between-group analysis showed a significant improvement in children’s ability to name letter-sounds correctly from T1 to T2 (p < 0.001) and from T1 to T3 (p < 0.05) for WM compared to CON. HM and WM improved significantly in naming conditional letter-sounds from T1 to T2 (p < 0.01, p < 0.01) compared to CON and from T1 to T3 for the HM group compared to CON (p < 0.05). We did not find an effect on word reading or a correlation between motor skill performance and reading. Results from the present study suggest that there are beneficial effects of using whole-body movements for children. Hand motor movements indeed also had a performance effect on letter-sound knowledge; however, the whole-body movements had longer-lasting effects. We do not see an effect on whole word reading.

本研究的目的是调查具身学习对儿童预读和单词阅读技能的影响。我们进行了一项三臂随机对照试验，包括两个干预组和一个对照组。从四所小学的 10 个不同班级招募了 149 名刚开始上学的 0 年级（5-6 岁）儿童。在每个班级中，孩子们被随机分配接受字母-声音耦合和单词解码的教学，其中包括全身运动 (WM)、手部运动 (HM) 或不运动 (CON)，时间为 8 周。在干预之前（T1）、之后（T2）和 17-22 周的保留期（T3）之后，对儿童的预读、单词阅读和运动技能进行评估。 与 CON 相比，WM 的p  < 0.001) 和从 T1 到 T3 ( p < 0.05) 。与 CON 相比，HM 和 WM 在从 T1 到 T2（ p  < 0.01，p  < 0.01）和从 T1 到 T3 与 CON 相比，HM 组在命名条件字母声音方面有显着改善（ p  < 0.05）。我们没有发现对单词阅读的影响或运动技能表现与阅读之间的相关性。本研究的结果表明，对儿童进行全身运动有有益的影响。手部运动确实对字母发音知识也有表现效果；然而，全身运动具有更持久的效果。我们没有看到对整个单词阅读的影响。