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The Synergistic Effect of Teaching a
Combined Explicit Movement and
Phonological Awareness Program to
Preschool Aged Students
Deborah Callcott, Lorraine Hammond &
Susan Hill
Early Childhood Education Journal
ISSN 1082-3301
Early Childhood Educ J
DOI 10.1007/s10643-014-0652-7
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Author's personal copy
Early Childhood Educ J
DOI 10.1007/s10643-014-0652-7
The Synergistic Effect of Teaching a Combined Explicit
Movement and Phonological Awareness Program to Preschool
Aged Students
Deborah Callcott • Lorraine Hammond
Susan Hill
•
Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014
Abstract While movement is critical to young children’s
development, there is an ongoing debate about the time
devoted to teaching movement in early childhood classrooms. Nevertheless, research has established a link between
specific precursor motor skills and early literacy development. This study investigated the synergistic effect of practising specific movements through daily actions and songs
alongside the explicit teaching of phonological awareness
and phonics in 400 preschool children (aged between four
and five). Results indicate that students who received the
combined intervention of explicit phonological awareness
and movement were the only group to perform significantly
better than the control group on measures of phonological
awareness, invented spelling and spelling. An interesting
outcome was that the literacy/movement group and not the
movement group made significantly larger gains for the
movement measure. These findings suggest that teaching
pre-primary aged children early literacy and movement in
tandem is more beneficial than teaching either in isolation.
Keywords Early childhood Movement Phonological
awareness Phonics Spelling
Introduction
Between the ages of two and six, the opportunity for
children to be active and to develop and refine movement
skills is central to children’s physical health and development (Callcott et al. 2012; Gabbard 2012; Pica 2010). The
D. Callcott (&) L. Hammond S. Hill
Edith Cowan University, 2 Bradford St, Mt Lawley, Perth,
WA 6050, Australia
e-mail: [email protected]
relationship between movement and cognition—more
specifically, literacy skills—is contoversial and there is
little current research that investigates this topic. While it is
accepted that the ability to read, write and spell equips
children with the skills for independent learning, to focus
exclusively on the development of literacy skills is to
forget that picking up a crayon, cutting with scissors and
controlling occular movements in order to read from left to
right depends fundamentally on the development of precursor motor skills that control the child’s ability to perform these tasks successfully.
There is presently unprecedented attention on the care,
development and education of young children in Australia,
particularly in the area of literacy. The launch of the skillsbased Australian Curriculum (2012) and Belonging, Being
& Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for
Australia (2009) has drawn attention to the need to devote
more time to the teaching of reading and spelling precursor
skills such as phonological awareness and phonics. For
early years teachers, the expectations at the Foundation
level of the Australian Curriculum represent a departure
from what typically has been expected of five year olds in
the past. For example, by the end of the Foundation year
the English Curriculum stipulates that students will be able
to ‘‘read short, predictable texts with familiar vocabulary
and supportive images’’ and ‘‘know that spoken sounds and
words can be written down using letters of the alphabet and
write some high-frequency sight words and known words’’
(Foundation Year Achievement Standard, ACARA, 2012).
In order to meet this outcome, literacy instruction has
become a priority in early years classrooms.
Given this, concerns raised by teachers that they are
required to embrace a ‘‘crowded curriculum’’(Emmel and
Penney 2010, p. 33) are not ill-founded, with many
reporting the ‘push down’ of formal learning to the
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kindergarten and pre-primary years (Adcock and Patton
2001). With greater emphasis on cognitive skills, the other
curriculum areas—including movement (both formal
instruction such as in the Physical Education Learning
Area and incidental or play based)—have been sidelined in
favour of subjects seen as having more influence in lifting
national standards, for which schools and teachers are seen
as being accountable (Bailey et al. 2009). Gabbard (2000)
observed that many administrators acknowledge that
movement is important, but express the view that there is
limited time in the day to accommodate all that schools
have to do. This economic rationalist view of timetabling
diminishes the relevance of providing opportunities for
movement, but more seriously overlooks the potential
detriment that the limitation of movement experiences in
the early years can have on the holistic development of the
child.
We argue that other factors are barriers to early years
educators teaching movement. The terminology used to
describe movement is complex and includes, for example,
motor, movement, sensory-motor and perceptual-motor,
the latter commonly used by allied professionals, such as
occupational therapists. An understanding of the terms
‘motor’ and ‘movement’ is critical to this study. While the
terms are often used interchangeably, ‘‘in its purest sense
motor refers to the underlying biological and mechanical
factors that influence movement’’ (Gabbard 2012, p. 6).
This means motor development results from the interaction
of biological processes and the environment and is related
to the growth, development and maturation of the child.
For the purposes of this paper, the term ‘motor skills’ is
used to denote skills that develop as a result of growth,
development and maturation. By contrast, ‘movement
skill’ is used to denote the outcome of an efficient combination of these skills to produce a desired outcome
through instruction and practice.
History also bears testament to the range of motor and
movement based classroom programs that teachers sometimes have been asked to implement. These include programs that claim to have a neuroscientific basis and to be of
assistance for children with educational difficulties, especially ‘learning disabilities’ (Coltheart and McArthur 2012,
p. 215), as well as those that teach the movement skills
required to play most sports. Recently, in response to
evidence of low levels of mastery of fundamental movement skills in primary aged children, Australian researchers
Hardy et al. (2010) argued that teaching movement should
begin in the early years. However, as Robinsonet al. (2012)
observed, many early years teachers are ill-prepared to
teach movement effectively and are not allocating time for
physical activity in the curriculum.
The importance of early movement cannot be overstated. Early movement experiences contribute not only to
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physical health and well-being (Callcott et al. 2012) but
also form the foundation of fundamental movement skills;
the platform from which children continue to develop
perceptual, cognitive and social skills as well as psychological attributes (Deli et al. 2006; Gallahue and Ozmun,
2006). These skills, best taught in the age range two to six,
constitute the precursor movement patterns inherent in
more specialised and complex physical skills. Perceptualmotor skills, or sensory-motor skills, are refined through
early movement experiences and are defined as the
capacity of an individual to utilise the information from the
environment to plan and execute motor actions (Allison
et al. 2007). Without the ‘‘dextrous grasp and skilled motor
control of both hands‘‘ (Allison et al. 2007, p. 50) required
to open a lunchbox, tie shoe laces or print letters, it will be
difficult for children to interact effectively in a classroom
environment and display evidence of their knowledge and
understanding in a conventional way, which includes
writing.
The cerebellum has long been considered as primarily
for movement skills and the prefrontal cortex for cognitive
skills; however, Diamond (2000) suggests that the cerebellum is not only important for motor functions but for
cognitive functions, and the prefrontal cortex ‘‘may play a
role in motor function and not simply cognition’’ (p. 44).
Others have described this interrelationship between sensory-motor development and cognition as providing the
foundation by which motor development is linked to
learning (Piek et al. 2008). The cerebellum is also thought
to play a part in allowing children to anticipate and control
behaviour through the development of ‘executive function’
(Koziol et al. 2012) allowing a child to maintain alertness
and attention as well as plan and regulate behaviour. More
recently the role of the cerebellum in cognitive functions
has been established, particularly in learning new tasks and
‘‘abstract thought’’ (Diamond 2000, p. 519) and there has
been interest in the use of movement as a medium for
instruction in other learning areas (Dollman et al. 2006).
While the physical benefits of movement are well documented, the consequences of denied opportunities to
develop sensory and perceptual motor skills through
movement exploration are not immediately obvious and
difficult to assess ethically. As such, there is a paucity of
research in this area on children. Research on the effect of
early movement and sensory experience on the developing
brains of animals, however, established that animals raised
in enriched settings, where movement options through
obstacle courses, toys and a treadmill were provided,
demonstrated the most significant overall brain development compared to those in restricted and less enriched
environments (Jones and Greenough 1996). This has led
movement researchers to argue that engagement with a
movement-rich and stimulating environment, because of
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the positive effect of this exposure on brain development,
needs to be considered in the link between movement and
cognitive development, social activity and communication
(Cech and Martin 1995; Piek 2006).
Currently, movement programs used in Western Australian (WA) classrooms are, in many cases, derived from
the early programs described by Berta and Karel Bobath
(see, for example, Ayres 1972; Bobath 1963; Bobath and
Bobath 1975; Delacato 1963). These perceptual-motor
based programs such as Brain Gym (2006) and Smart
Starters (Smart Start with 2002) are designed (as were their
perceptual motor-based predecessors) to remediate underlying processes and facilitate academic learning particularly in the area of literacy. Hyatt (2007) reviewed four
published studies on the effects of BrainGym, a popular
educational program used widely in Australian schools
(Stephenson and Wheldall 2008) and concluded that none
of the studies were sound and that the program conveys no
educational benefits. A further example of this type of
program is the Dore program, which was initially promoted
in the UK in the late 1990s and subsequently in Australia.
The Dore program claimed to benefit those with Dyslexia,
Dyspraxia and Aspergers syndrome (Dore 2006) by
building new pathways to the cerebellum to improve cognitive and motor skills (Hall 2007). Costing up to £1900 in
some cases (Collins 2005; Woods 2003), the Dore program
was unable to substantiate any of the claims made for a
cure or even for an improvement (Berg 2010; Stephenson
and Wheldall 2008).
To summarise, the validity and reliability of research
which has attempted to establish the efficacy of perceptualmotor programs (PMP) to improve academic performance,
in particular literacy skills, is not favourable. A metaanalysis by Kavale and Mattson (1983) reported that the
evidence for the efficacy of perceptual motor programs
depended mainly on narratives and case studies. Kaplan
et al. (1993) concluded that perceptual motor programs
made no significant difference to gross and fine motor
skills, reading and mathematics. When considering the use
of these programs in literacy development, Hammill (2004)
concluded that PMP training would have no benefit for
reading.
Faced with negative and, at times, controversial reviews
of movement programs, uncertainity about how to teach
motor skills and the competing demands from other curriculum areas, it is not surprising that, ‘the baby has been
thrown out with the bathwater’ with respect to teaching
movement. As Morgan and Hansen (2007) observe, the end
result is limited importance placed on providing movement
based opportunities in the early childhood setting by
teachers, or, worse still, a complete lack of developmentally appropriate and educative experiences being provided
to students (Morgan and Hansen 2007).
To address this situation we propose a daily classroom
based movement program that, in the first instance, is
practical for teachers to implement and will support young
children’s physical, social and cognitive development.
Second, we hypothesise that teaching specific movements
to systematically practise and refine the motor skills that
underpin the movement requirements of reading and writing will advantage pre-primary aged children, if taught
alongside explicit instruction in precursor literacy skills.
We base this hypothesis on the mounting evidence of a
strong association between physical activity in a broad
sense and cognitive ability as measured by the ‘‘perceptual
skills, intelligence quotient, achievement, verbal tests,
maths tests, developmental level and academic readiness of
young people’’ (Sattelmair and Ratey 2009, p. 367). With
respect to teaching movement that specifically targets those
motor skills required for early literacy development, we
conducted a review of the research literature and could find
no research investigating teaching movement in isolation
or in combination with early literacy precursors to achieve
improved literacy outcomes.
Compared to teaching movement, the teaching of literacy has always been regarded as a core part of any early
years classroom. In the context of this study, reading is
defined as the ability to decode, recognise and draw
meaning from the printed word. This skill initially depends
on children learning exactly how the written code relates to
the spoken language they use to communicate each day.
Spelling, the encoding of speech to writing, relies on much
of the same underlying knowledge as decoding: understanding the relationships between letters and sounds
(Moats 2005). Phonological awareness is the ability to
detect, manipulate, or analyse the auditory aspects of
spoken language (including the ability to distinguish or
segment words, syllables, or phonemes), independent of
meaning (National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) 2008, p. 3)
and underpins both encoding and decoding words.
Researchers have consistently linked deficient phonological awareness, specifically phoneme awareness, in kindergarten and the early grades, with poor reading and spelling
achievement (National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) 2008;
National Reading Panel (NRP) 2000).
Phonics, the study of the units of sound in language and
their corresponding letters, provides beginning readers and
spellers with the skills and knowledge to decode and
encode words (Treiman 2006). Weak letter-sound knowledge is another cause of difficulties children encounter
trying to translate a printed word into its spoken form
(Hulme et al. 2012, p. 576). According to the National
Early Literacy Panel report (National Institute for Literacy
(NIFL) 2008), measures of children’s alphabet knowledge
yielded a strong relation with reading and spelling
outcomes.
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For many Western Australian pre-primary teachers the
pressure to teach precursor literacy skills is significant.
Movement in our opinion is no less important and just as
demanding to teach and allocate time for in an already busy
early childhood program. To draw attention to the importance of movement, and its relationship to literacy development in the early years, we undertook to investigate
whether pre-primary children who participate in a program
comprising of two components: literacy (Let’s Decode);
and movement (Moving on with Literacy), would demonstrate superior results in measures of movement and early
literacy skills when compared with students receiving literacy only intervention, movement only intervention and a
control group receiving no intervention. Mindful of the
pressure on teachers to take on additional programs, both
components were designed to require minimal preparation
in terms of preparation and to be completed in no more
than 30 min each day.
Method
A quasi-experimental design was used for the research.
Eight primary schools located in suburbs of Perth with a
similar middle to high Index of Community Socio-educational Advantage (ICSE) value were approached to participate in this project. We chose not to work in schools in
low socio-economic areas to minimise any surrounding
variables of disadvantage that may otherwise confound this
study. Each school had two classes of pre-primary aged
children (five years), with up to 25 children in each. This
created a total of 400 children with approximately 100
children per intervention group. We matched schools to the
different treatment conditions randomly with the exception
of two schools that had previously trialled the literacy
intervention, Let’s Decode (Formentin 1992). As each
teacher, with the exception of the control group, was
required to implement a new approach, the teachers
selected to implement both movement and literacy programs were already familiar with Let’s Decode (Formentin
1992).
Pre-test measures were completed in the first three
weeks of the school year and we conducted professional
development sessions for the intervention teachers immediately after. The day long sessions for literacy and for
movement followed the same structure with teachers
learning about the programs as well as how to deliver them.
We demonstrated how to teach each song or literacy format
to the teachers, and then demonstrated with a class of preprimary students. We subsequently visited each participating teacher in their classroom to observe them teaching
the movement and/or literacy programs and to provide
further demonstrations and support. Over the course of the
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intervention, teachers were visited once per term to monitor for fidelity of implementation. The same procedure was
followed for the control groups who received professional
development sessions related to the importance of movement and early literacy development but did not receive
either or both programs. In the third week of the final term
of the school year, the students were retested on the same
measures. Combinations of non-standardised and standardised measures were used to gather data and most children completed all measures at pre and post stages.
Literacy Measures
Test of Phonological Awareness
The Test of Phonological Awareness (TOPA) (Torgesen
1994) measures sensitivity to rhyme and phoneme segmentation, two aspects of phonological awareness, and
results are reported in standard scores. That the test features a ‘child friendly’ format with pictures and can be
administered to groups of young children influenced our
choice even though it is not the most contemporary measure of phonological awareness. However, Torgesen (1994)
maintains the TOPA meets the requirements of the
American Psychological Association and the TOPA yields
standard scores that are sensitive to the time of the school
year the test is administered. Coefficient alpha was .90 and
total score reliability was reported by the authors as .91
(Cronbach’s alpha) by Yopp (1988) and this evidence
supports the internal consistency of the TOPA and indicates a high reliability instrument.
Developmental Spelling Test
The Developmental Spelling Test (DST) (Tangel and
Blachman 1995) is a non-standardised measure of invented
spelling consisting of ten words dictated in isolation.
Unlike spelling measures that require conventional spelling, the words are each scored on a 7 point scale from 0
(random letter string) to 6 (correct spelling), out of a total
score of 60 points. The rating scale has been shown to be
sensitive to changes in students’ ability to segment words
into phonemes and apply orthographic knowledge. The
authors reported Pearson correlation r = .999 p\.001 for
the agreement of scores between assessors for this version
of the DST.
Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised: Spelling Subtest
The Spelling subtest of the Wide Range Achievement TestRevised (WRAT-R) consists of three parts. First, children
copy marks in the form of straight lines, circles and shapes
in one minute. These shapes resemble letters and receive a
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maximum score of 18. Second, children are given an
additional minute to write their name. Children do not have
to write their complete name; rather correctly writing any
two letters in their name receives the maximum two points.
A raw score of 20 equates to a ‘high average to average’
standard score for pre-primary aged children and
acknowledges the importance of children’s visual motor
integration, visual perception and eye-hand co-ordination,
precursor motor skills in this test. Finally, the children write
words to dictation. As opposed to awarding partial marks
for qualitative changes in spelling development, this second
spelling measure we chose has a dichotomous scoring
system to measure the accuracy of beginning spelling.
Jastak and Wilkinson (1984), the authors of the WRATR, reported median coefficients for Spelling range from
r = .92 to r = .99, and cited moderate correlations
between the California Achievement Test and WRAT-R
Spelling. The test-retest reliability of the WRAT–R
Spelling relevant to the age of student included in this
study was r = .97.
Movement ABC-2
Movement ABC (M-ABC) (1992) is one of the most
popular instruments in the assessment of children with
movement coordination problems (Ruiz et al. 2003).
Movement ABC-2 (2007) is a revised and shortened version of the M-ABC and can be used by a variety of professionals including teachers, therapists and paediatricians.
According to the M-ABC test manual (Henderson et al.
2007, p. 5), the four primary uses of the Movement ABC-2
assessment are: ‘‘for identification [of children with
movement issues], for clinical exploration and intervention
planning, for programme evaluation and as a research
tool’’.
The Movement ABC-2 is a standardised test that
requires a child to perform a series of motor tasks in a
strictly specified way providing qualitative data on performance in three categories: Manual Dexterity, Aiming
and Catching and Balance (Henderson et al. 2007). For the
purpose of this research only the MABC-2 standardised
test, which involves the child directly, was administered.
The second part involves a checklist which requires an
adult to subjectively rate the child’s competence. Due to
the large sample size and the difficulties in ensuring the
validity and reliability in the collection of this information,
only the quantitative data based on actual movement performance by each child was considered at this time.
The test retest and inter-tester reliability of the initial
M-ABC test was established in the UK using 360 children
randomly selected from a population of 3,000. In test retest
reliability the minimum value at any age was 0.75 and
inter-tester correlation was 0.70.
Interventions
Of the eight schools participating in the research, two
received both the Let’s Decode and Moving on with Literacy interventions (from here on referred to as the
Lit?Movt group), two received only the Let’s Decode
literacy intervention (Literacy group), and two received
only the Moving on with Literacy intervention (the
Movement group). The interventions were implemented
concurrently leaving the final two schools who did not
receive either of these interventions (Control group). In all
schools, classroom teachers conducted their regular preprimary program, which included physical education and
English, over the course of the study.
Moving on With Literacy
Moving on with Literacy (MowL) is an original program
developed by the first author and comprises 30 action songs
that a whole class sing and perform together as modelled
by a teacher. The engaging action songs provide targeted
movement practice that includes fine motor skill practice,
eye-tracking, balance, rhythm, cross-lateral movement,
gross motor skills, core strength and aerobic capacity and
aim to improve overall co-ordination and rhythm. MowL
encourages interpersonal skills as there is partner and small
group work and the action songs take no longer than
15 min per day to practise.
There are 30 songs incorporated in the program, each
with its own movement challenge and language, so there
are opportunities to challenge students with differing levels
of movement in each song and accommodate individual
differences. While written instructions are provided during
the professional learning, the program does not require any
resources, preparation (other than learning the actions and
songs), and equipment or parent helpers. The familiar
songs can be linked to classroom themes such as zoo animals, space or the circus, for example.
Moving on with Literacy was developed to be implemented alongside the explicit teaching of emergent literacy
in the pre-primary classroom.
Let’s Decode (Formentin, 1992)
Let’s Decode is an approach to teaching phonological
awareness and systematic decoding instruction that is
drawn from instructional formats first published in Direct
Instruction Reading (Carnine et al. 1990) and based on the
Theory of Instruction (Engleman and Carnine 1991).
Teachers implementing Let’s Decode spend approximately
15 min each day explicitly teaching auditory analysis such
as concept of word, blending, rhyming and phoneme segmentation, before letter sounds and the strategy of
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decoding words. Students are active participants during
Let’s Decode lessons as there is a high rate of unison oral
responding and teachers maintain a brisk pace to minimise
interruptions and teach ‘more in less time’. In this study,
teachers presented Let’s Decode to the whole class, preferably in the morning; however, the formats can be
delivered to small groups and individual students. There is
an emphasis on mastery learning and error correction is
immediate. Students receive a high level of feedback, have
many opportunities to practice particular skills and individual needs can be accommodated by selecting easier or
harder examples.
The efficacy of ‘structured, systematic, phonic’
approaches like Let’s Decode has been highlighted in
influential reports such as the National Inquiry into the
Teaching of Literacy (2005) and international reports on
reading (National Institute for Literacy (NIFL) 2008;
National Reading Panel (NRP) 2000; Rose 2006) and
investigated locally (Formentin and Hammond 1997; Formentin et al. 1994). In particular, the Australian National
Inquiry Committee (2005 p. 14) recommended that teachers provide systematic, direct and explicit phonics
instruction so that children master the essential alphabetic
code-breaking skills required for foundational reading
proficiency. These precursor skills include phonological
awareness, letter-sound knowledge and the alphabetic
principle and are taught explicitly by teachers implementing Let’s Decode (Formentin 1992).
Let’s Decode has proven to be a highly effective
approach to teaching early literacy because it provides
teachers with the instructional language and sequence to
teach precursors to reading and spelling. This semi-scripted
block of instruction can be included in morning mat sessions and requires no specialist equipment or materials.
What has not been considered previously, which is the
focus of this research, is the effect of combining Let’s
Decode with a movement intervention.
Analysis
Three different perspectives were employed to analyse the
pretest-posttest data: analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)
controlling for pre-test score differences, univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) on the gain (difference) scores,
and non-parametric analysis of gain scores using the
Kruskal-Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tests. The rationale for this multi-faceted analysis approach arises from
two key points: the problem of non-normality with the
dependent variables in our data and the debate in the literature regarding appropriate statistical tests to use with
pre-test-post-test designs. Various authors (see for example
(Dimitrov and Rumrill 2003; Knapp and Schafer 2009;
Wright 2006) have argued the merits of gain score analysis
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versus ANCOVA. A key point of agreement is that the two
approaches answer different research questions (Hand
1994; Knapp and Schafer 2009; Maxwell and Delaney
1990; Wright 2006). As Knapp and Schafer (2009 p. 2)
have described: ‘For the former, the question is: ‘‘What is
the effect of the treatment on the change from pretest to
posttest?’’ For the latter the question is: ‘‘What is the effect
of the treatment on the posttest that is not predictable from
the pretest (i.e., conditional on the pretest)?’’’ This distinction is sometimes subtle, and (Wright 2003, 2006)
suggests that it is often advisable to conduct and report
both analyses where the researcher is interested in both
types of question. We believe that practitioners in particular may be interested in both questions and therefore
report both results, as well as the non-parametric analysis
of the gain scores as a means of validating the results of the
parametric tests.
There are several underlying assumptions of the data
that should be met before conducting ANOVA and
ANCOVA, including independence, normality, homogeneity of variance, and for ANCOVA the additional criteria
of linearity and homogeneity of regression slopes. Various
texts (for example (Allen and Bennett 2008; Field 2005)
have noted that ANOVA and ANCOVA are relatively
robust over moderate violations of the normality and
homogeneity of variance assumptions, but violations of the
linearity and homogeneity of regression slopes are more
likely to be problematic. For this research, the four
dependent variables were not normally distributed across
all four intervention groups and transformation of the data
did not satisfactorily resolve the matter. With the exception
of the M-ABC test, the dependent variables also violated
the assumption of homogeneity of variance. However, the
assumptions of linearity and homogeneity of regression
slopes were upheld. Since the violation of assumptions of
normality and homogeneity of variance cast some doubt on
the validity of results derived from ANCOVA and gain
score analysis, we also report the results of non-parametric
tests.
Results
The means and standard deviations for each group on the
pre-test, post-test and gain score are provided in Table 1,
along with the main effect significance levels (p values) for
the various statistical tests. A ‘visual’ summary of the
pairwise significant differences is provided in Table 2.
One-way ANOVA on the pre-test scores for each measure found no significant differences between groups at
commencement of the research, except on the M-ABC test
of conventional spelling (F(3, 288) = 2.966, p = .032). For
this, pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni adjustment
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Table 1 Comparison of groups
on the pre-tests, post-tests, and
gain scores
Measure
Group
Pre-test
n
Mean
Post-test
(SD)
Mean
Gain score
(SD)
Adj. mean
a
Mean
(SD)
WRAT
Lit?Movt
84
95.19
(15.50)
116.83
(20.77)
116.09
21.64
(21.90)
Literacy
65
90.37
(25.79)
109.34
(14.05)
109.93
19.17
(21.53)
Movement
66
92.64
(17.08)
108.47
(13.74)
108.44
14.92
(20.24)
Control
78
91.33
(21.84)
105.45
(13.56)
105.78
14.46
(20.85)
.482*
p value
\.001**
.106?
.039??
TOPA
Lit?Movt
84
10.89
(2.56)
13.19
(2.04)
13.13
2.30
(2.68)
Literacy
67
10.34
(3.15)
12.88
(1.90)
13.02
2.54
(2.61)
Movement
Control
67
79
10.60
10.99
(2.41)
(2.78)
11.88
11.99
(2.17)
(2.87)
11.93
11.89
1.28
1.00
(2.54)
(2.78)
.475*
p value
\.001**
\.001?
.001??
DST
a
Adjusted mean post-test
scores, controlling for pre-test
performance
*
One-way analysis of variance
on pre-test conducted between
groups
** Analysis of covariance on
post-test conducted between
groups, using pre-test as
covariate
?
One-way analysis on gain
score conducted between groups
??
Lit?Movt
85
15.14
(15.14)
42.91
(8.46)
42.89
27.76
(10.18)
Literacy
65
14.26
(14.26)
36.83
(10.63)
37.27
22.57
(9.78)
Movement
67
14.87
(14.87)
32.99
(10.31)
33.11
18.12
(9.93)
Control
77
16.03
(16.03)
28.35
(13.75)
27.89
12.32
(12.77)
\.001**
\.001?
.859*
p value
\.001??
MABC-2
Lit?Movt
84
10.02
(2.55)
11.39
(2.73)
11.48
1.37
Literacy
63
9.78
(2.74)
10.37
(2.89)
10.53
0.59
(2.75)
Movement
61
10.13
(2.53)
10.89
(2.41)
10.94
0.75
(3.05)
Control
75
11.13
(2.94)
10.84
(2.25)
10.56
*
p value
.015
Table 2 Summary of pairwise
significant differences for each
of the measures and statistical
testsa
Statistical
Test
ANCOVA on Post-test (PreTest as Covariate)
Measure
Relationship
between means
p valueb
WRAT-R
L?M [ M
L?M [ C
.014
\.001
TOPA
L?M [ M
.003
L?M [ C
.001
L?M [ C
L[M
.013
L[M
L[C
.006
L?M [ L
DST
a
Groups: L?M Lit?Movt,
L Literacy, M Movement,
C Control
b
alpha = .05
c
alpha = .008
M-ABC
-0.29
**
Non-parametric KruskallWallis test on gain score
conducted between groups
.056
ANOVA on Gain Scores
Relationship
between means
p valueb
(3.26)
(2.94)
?
.008
.018??
Mann-Whitney U on
Gain Scores
Relationship
between means
p valuec
L?M [ C
.006
.012
L?M [ C
.003
.041
L[M
.004
L[C
.003
L[C
.001
.001
L?M [ L
.022
L?M [ L
.005
L?M [ M
\.001
L?M [ M
\.001
L?M [ M
\.001
L?M [ C
\.001
L?M [ C
\.001
L?M [ C
\.001
L[M
.049
L[C
\.001
L[C
\.001
L[C
\.001
M[C
.003
M[C
.009
M[C
.004
L?M [ C
.004
L?M [ C
.002
123
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Early Childhood Educ J
revealed that, on average, the Control group scored significantly higher at pre-test than the Literacy group
(p = .021).
WRAT–R
As Table 1 illustrates, at post-test the Lit?Movt group
performed statistically better, on average, than each of the
other groups on the WRAT-R. ANCOVA revealed a significant main effect of the intervention on the children’s
performance after controlling for the effect of pre-test
performance (F(3, 288) = 6.750, p \ .001). Pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni adjustment showed that the
Lit?Movt group performed significantly better than both
the Movement (p = .014) and Control (p \ .001) groups.
Gain score analysis revealed somewhat mixed results,
however. While the Lit?Movt group performed better than
other groups, their average gain was only marginally higher
than the Literacy group and the main effect of the intervention was not significant. Somewhat surprisingly, the
non-parametric equivalent of ANOVA, the Kruskall-Wallis
H test, did reveal a significant main effect of the intervention on gain scores (v2(3, N = 291) = 8.318, p = .039).
Pairwise comparisons using the Mann-Whitney U test with
Bonferonni adjusted alpha levels of .008 per test (.05/6)
found that, on average, students in the Lit?Movt group
made significantly higher gains (p = .006) than those in the
Control group. No other significant differences were found.
TOPA
The Lit?Movt group’s average post-test performance on
phonological awareness was better than each of the other
groups. ANCOVA revealed a significant main effect of the
intervention after controlling for pre-test differences
(F(2, 293) = 5.911, p = .001), and pairwise comparisons
(with Bonferroni adjustment) confirmed that students in the
Lit?Movt group and the Literacy group, respectively,
performed better than their peers in both the Movement
(p = .003; p = .013) and Control (p = .001; p = .006)
groups.
This pattern of results was also largely borne out by the
gain score analyses. ANOVA on gain scores showed a
significant main effect (F(3, 292) = 8.156, p \ .001) of the
intervention, while pairwise comparisons confirmed that
the average gain made by the Lit?Movt group was significantly higher than the Control (p = .012) group, and
that the average gain made by the Literacy group was
significantly higher than both the Movement and Control
(p = .041, p = .003) groups, resepctively. The small
observed difference in gains for the Lit?Movt and Literacy
groups was not statistically significant.
123
The non-parametric analysis of gain scores also found a
significant main effect of the intervention (v2 (3,
N = 297)=17.584, p = .001). Pairwise comparisons using
the Mann-Whitney U test with Bonferroni adjustment of
the alpha level (.05/6 = .008) substantiated the significant
differences between the Lit?Movt and Control groups
(p = .003), the Literacy and Movement groups (p = .004),
and Literacy and Control groups (p = .001).
DST
On the test of invented spelling, the Lit?Movt group
performed better, on average, at post-test, than each of the
other groups, and also made the highest average gain.
ANCOVA revealed a significant main effect for the intervention (F(3, 289) = 40.292, p \ .001) when controlling for
pre-test differences. Table 1 shows there was a cascading
effect with the Lit ? Movt group performing best, followed
in order by the Literacy, Movement and Control groups.
Pairwise comparisons found that the observed differences
between each group were statistically significant beyond
the .05 level. That is, the Lit?Movt group scored significantly higher at post-test than the Literacy (p = .001),
Movement (p \ .001) and Control (p \ .001) groups; the
Literacy group scored significantly higher than the Movement (p = .049) and Control (p \ .001) groups; and the
Movement group scored significantly higher than the
Control (p = .003) group.
These results were also borne out by the gain score
analyses. One-way ANOVA on gain scores showed a significant main effect of the intervention (F(3, 290) = 29.487,
p\.001), and pairwise comparisons (with Bonferroni
adjustment) showed much the same cascading pattern of
results in that the Lit?Movt group made significantly
higher average gains than the Literacy (p = .022), Movement (p \ .001) and Control (p \ .001) groups. The Literacy and Movement groups, respectively, also made
significantly greater average gains than the Control
(p \ .001 and p = .009) group, but the observed difference
between the Literacy and Movement group was not
significant.
Non-parametric analysis of the gain scores also substantiated the observed differences between the intervention groups. The Kruskall-Wallis H test revealed a
significant effect of the intervention grouping (v2(3,
N = 293)=8.381, p = .039), while paired comparisons
using the Mann-Whitney U test with Bonferroni adjustment
of the alpha level (.05/6 = .008) confirmed significant
differences between the Lit?Movt group and the Literacy
(U = 2018.5, p = .005), Movement (U = 1414.5, p\.001)
and Control (U = 1093, p \ .001) groups, respectively,
and between the Literacy and Control (U = 1290,
Author's personal copy
Early Childhood Educ J
p \ .001) groups, and the Movement and Control
(U = 1854, p = .004) groups.
M-ABC2
On the M-ABC test of movement skills, students in the Lit
? Movt group performed better at post-test and made the
largest average gains than the other groups. Notably,
although the Control group started out with significantly
higher performance on the pre-test than the other groups,
over the course of the year their average performance
seemed to decline relative to the changes one would expect
due to maturation.
ANCOVA on the post-test controlling for pre-test differences approached but did not reach statistical significance
(p = .056).
However,
one-way
ANOVA
(F(3,279) = 4.044, p = .008) on the gain scores did find
significant main effects for the intervention grouping, and
pairwise comparisons revealed a significant difference
between the Lit?Movt group and the Control group
(p = .004). The non-parametric Kruskall-Wallis H test on
gain scores confirmed the significant main effect of intervention group (v2 (3, N = 283) = 10.11, p = .018) and
pairwise comparisons using Mann-Whitney U confirmed a
significant difference between the Lit?Movt and Control
groups (U =2257, p = .002).
Summary
Students who received the Lit?Movt intervention were the
only group to perform significantly better than the Control
group on three measures - the WRAT-R, DST and TOPA.
When accounting for pre-test differences, the Lit?Movt
group’s post-test scores were significantly higher than the
Movement and Control groups on the WRAT and TOPA,
and significantly higher than all three groups (Movement,
Literacy, Control) on the DST. As we might expect, the
Literacy group also scored significantly higher at post-test
than both the Movement and Control groups on the TOPA
and DST.
In terms of the average gains that students made from
pre to post test, only the Lit?Movt group’s gains were
significantly higher than the Control on all four measures.
For the TOPA and DST, the Literacy and Movement
groups also made significant gains as compared to the
Control. Interestingly, however, it was only the Lit?Movt
group (and not the Movement group) that made significantly bigger gains than the Control for the movement
measure (MABC). This finding highlights the possibility of
a synergistic relationship between the areas of the brain
involved in literacy and movement.
Discussion
Links between cognition and movement have proven to be
a fertile ground for controversy in the past, so we interpret
these results conservatively. There does however appear to
be significant benefits from combining a specific movement program that targets the precursor motor skills
required for early literacy and a strong case for further
research in this area to replicate these findings in a different
setting. Other studies have highlighted the positive effect of
physical activity on physical, social and effective domains
(Dollman et al. 2006) and there has been limited persuasive
evidence to date to link movement directly with cognitive
performance (Bailey et al. 2009).
Much of the research on the link between movement and
cognition, especially in the area of literacy, has focussed on
remediating a perceived ‘deficit’ in underlying perceptualmotor skills. In contrast, the combination of movement and
literacy activities reported here were part of the daily
classroom program provided to all children. In this case
movement was used in conjunction with the explicit
teaching of precursor literacy skills appearing to result in
an ‘add-on benefit’.
In the past there has been a significant emphasis on
perceptual-motor development as a core part of the early
childhood teaching experience. The ‘readiness’ programs
teachers provided in kindergarten and pre-primary included
opportunities for children to utilise core movement
including skills such as the ability to hold a pencil and
write, to use scissors, to display coordination and classroom concentration (McGarrigle and Nelson 2006). Fine
and gross motor movement was a key component of
‘readiness’ programs, in particular, in the development of
perceptual motor skills; the ability to co-ordinate small
and/or large muscle groups to accomplish tasks children
visualize themselves doing. The approach of combining
explicit phonological awareness and explicit movement
experiences together overcomes two of the perceived
issues related to the delivery of movement in the early
years- finding the time to deliver a movement program and
the quality of the content of the program.
The movement program reported here takes only 15 min
each day, does not require equipment set up and is delivered during the literacy block. It is also scripted for the
teacher and set to simple and well known tunes—only
requiring the teacher to deliver the program and not to
spend time planning it themselves. The results we have
reported underscore the need to reinstate the place of
movement instruction in early years classrooms and to
consider teaching this alongside explicit precursor skills for
literacy as this appears to have a synergistic benefit for
young children.
123
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Early Childhood Educ J
Acknowledgments Ethics was granted by the office of Research
Ethics at Edith Cowan University Project Number 6371. This research
was funded by a Faculty Grant from the Faculty of Education and
Arts, Edith Cowan University.
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