Blog | How Movement Can Enhance Learning

Incorporating purposeful movement into elementary literacy lessons can significantly boost student engagement and comprehension, says Susan Griss, author of Minds in Motion. Rather than using general movement, educators are encouraged to tie movement directly to literacy content, such as acting out characters, emotions, settings, or even grammar and vocabulary concepts. This kinesthetic approach helps students internalize stories by embodying them, deepening their connection to the text through emotion, visualization, and memory. For example, students might act out punctuation marks with gestures, pose as vocabulary words, or create short movement-based plays that reflect a story’s sequence and theme. These strategies make learning more memorable and meaningful by engaging both the body and the mind.