The effect of motor-encoding activities on memory and performance in a grade one reading program

This study examined the effectiveness of motor-encoding activities on&#13;\nmemory and performance of students in a Grade One reading program.&#13;\nThere were two experiments in the study. Experiment 1 replicated a study by&#13;\nEli Saltz and David Dixon (1982). The effect of motoric enactment (Le., pretend&#13;\nplay) of sentences on memory for the sentences was investigated. Forty Grade&#13;\nOne students performed a "memory-for-sentences" technique, devised by Saltz&#13;\nand Dixon. Only the experimental group used motoric enactment of the&#13;\nsentences. Although quantitative findings revealed no significant difference&#13;\nbetween the mean scores of the experimental group versus the control group,&#13;\naspects of the experimental design could have affected the results. It was&#13;\nsuggested that Saltz and Dixon's study could be replicated again, with more&#13;\nattention given to variables such as population size, nature of the test&#13;\nsentences, subjects' previous educational experience and conditions related to&#13;\nthe testing environment.&#13;\nThe second experiment was an application of Saltz and Dixon's theory that&#13;\nmotoric imagery should facilitate memory for sentences. The intent was to&#13;\napply this theory to Grade One students' ability to remember words from their&#13;\nreading program. An experimental gym program was developed using&#13;\nkinesthetic activities to reinforce the skills of the classroom reading program.&#13;\nThe same subject group was used in Experiment 2.&#13;\nIt was hypothesized that the subjects who experienced the experimental gym&#13;\nprogram would show greater signs of progress in reading ability, as evidenced&#13;\nby their scores on Form G of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test--Revised.&#13;\nThe data from the WRM--R were analyzed with a 3-way split-plot analysis of&#13;\nvariance in which group (experimental vs. control) and sex were the between subjects variables and test-time (pre-test vs. post-test) was the within-subjects&#13;\nvariable.&#13;\nFindings revealed the following: (a) both groups made substantial gains&#13;\nover time on the visual-auditory learning sub-test and the triple action of group x&#13;\nsex x time also was significant; (b) children in the experimental and control&#13;\ngroups performed similarly on both the pre- and post-test of the letter&#13;\nidentification test; (c) time was the only significant effect on subjects'&#13;\nperformance on the word identification task; (d) work attack scores showed&#13;\nmarked improvement in performance over time for both the experimenta+ and&#13;\ncontrol groups; (e) passage comprehension scores indicated an improvement&#13;\nin performance for both groups over time.&#13;\nSimilar to Experiment 1, it is suggested that several modifications in the&#13;\nexperimental design could produce significant results. These factors are&#13;\naddressed with suggestions for further research in the area of active learning;&#13;\nmore specifically, the effect of motor-encoding activities on memory and&#13;\nacademic performance of children.

Topic: Reading and Literacy Development
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences