Studies Find Students Learn More by 'Acting Out' Text

Researchers found that elementary school students working through narrative math problems were less distracted by irrelevant information if they used a computer program to act out the text by moving images on-screen.

—Arthur Glenberg/Arizona State University

By Sarah D. Sparks

While most readers might think of curling up in a quiet place with a good book, a new series of studies suggests young students may comprehend more if they take a more active approach to reading.

A series of experiments by researchers at Arizona State University in Tempe and the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that students can understand and infer more by physically acting out text—either in real life or virtually—than by reading alone.

In the most recent of the experiments, published in the June issue of the journal Scientific Studies of Reading , researchers found that elementary mathematics students who acted out text in word problems were more accurate and less distracted...