The effects of physical activity interventions on prereading, early word recognition and spelling development in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

Background

Reading and spelling skills are important abilities to acquire for later success in school and therefore it is highly relevant to examine strategies of facilitating these academic skills. Physical activity integrated with the learning sessions or physical activity added but not integrated with the learning sessions has been identified as possible strategies.

Objective

To identify, categorize and examine the characteristics and effects of interventions investigating the effect of physical activity on children's early reading skills.

Design

This systematic review follows the PRISMA guidelines. Studies were separated into two categories based on whether physical activity integrates academic content or not, i.e., 1) low integration interventions or 2) high integration interventions. Additionally, high integration interventions were further subgrouped based on the congruency of the activity (i.e., whether the movement supported the learning content). Low integration interventions were subgrouped based on the complexity of the activity (i.e., if the physical activity was cognitively/coordinatively demanding or not). Study quality was assessed, and effects were summarized narratively for each category. Furthermore, a meta-analysis was conducted to quantify both types of interventions. Only studies involving children with an intervention investigating the long-term effects of physical activity on prereading, word recognition, and spelling skills were included.

Data sources

PubMed, Web of Science, PsychINFO, Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts, ERIC and SportDiscuss.

Results

Twenty-three studies were identified and categorized into two groups (thirteen high integration interventions and ten low integration interventions). Across outcome measures, eight of the thirteen high-integration intervention studies reported statistically significant effects on at least one measure of prereading, word recognition, or spelling skills favoring the intervention. In contrast, only two out of ten studies categorized as low integration interventions reported a statistically significant effect. Multilevel meta-analysis showed an insignificant average random-effects model size of Hedges’ g = 0.03 (95% CI: 0.02, 0.09) for low integration and a significant effect size of g = 0.69 (95% CI: 0.12, 1.26) for high integration interventions. The distinction between low and high complexity within the low integration group, and between levels of congruency in high integration interventions, revealed no significant differences between these subgroups.

Conclusions

Results from the present review and meta-analysis suggest that the integration of physical activity into the classroom, using activities with a close temporal connection to the academic task (i.e., high integration interventions), appears to be an effective strategy to improve children's word recognition and spelling skills. Due to the limited number and heterogeneity across studies included these findings call for additional studies to clarify specific characteristics of the physical activity needed to support the process of learning to read and spell for children.