Improving Children's Listening Comprehension with a Manipulation Strategy

The authors examined the cognitive benefits of physical manipulation. Participants were 76 kindergarten and first-grade students randomly assigned to 2 strategies: stories with pictures or manipulation. In the pictures strategy, participants listened to story content and viewed pictures. In the manipulation strategy, participants moved manipulatives as directed by the stories. After a training period, the pictures or manipulatives were removed and participants were instructed to imagine story events. Significant differences in favor of the manipulation strategy on free and cued recall were observed during all 3 instructional periods. Furthermore, strategy by recall type and strategy by grade-level interactions were identified during the training sessions. After training, the participants were instructed to imagine story events, and a significant difference was observed in favor of the manipulation strategy.