A Study of Improving Primary Students' Reading Ability With Embodied Reading Strategies

ABSTRACT This study aimed to create embodied reading strategies and to promote improving primary school students' reading ability in rhythm control and emotional expression. This study adopted a design‐based research (DBR) approach, with 45 students from a second‐grade primary school class as participants. In the first stage, the traditional relatively static reading method was changed, and a rhythm strategy was added based on creating an embodied atmosphere. In the second stage, an embodied clue was used to enhance action guidance to address the problem of insufficient guidance of emotion and rhythm by actions in the first stage. In the third stage, the rhythm and action imitation strategies were improved to address the problem of insufficient stability of the reading effect in the second stage. The results showed that (1) Embodied reading strategies mentioned in this study to promote the reading ability of primary school students were mainly designed from the two aspects of rhythm strategy and action imitation strategy based on environmental preparation and the creation of embodied atmosphere. (2) Embodied reading strategies based on rhythm and action improved primary school students’ reading abilities in rhythm control and emotional expression. Based on our findings, we proposed several suggestions and derived some implications. Therefore, this study highlights the practical value of embodied reading strategies in applying embodied cognition theory to enhance learning through physical actions. It also offers an interdisciplinary perspective that links education, psychology, cognitive science, and art and opens new directions for future research.