Moved to learn: The effects of interactivity in a Kinect-based literacy game for beginning readers

•Children's learning from joint reading in different media was examined.•Picture book reading with adult was compared to reading in a digital game.•We compared digital games with and without embedded gesture-based activities.•Game with activities and joint reading with adult both resulted in language learning.•Digital game with embedded activities was superior to game without activities.

Reading to young children has a number of benefits, including supporting the acquisition of vocabulary and literacy skills. Digital reading games, including ones with new modes of interface such as the Kinect for Xbox, may provide similar benefits in part by allowing dynamic in-game activities. However, these activities may also be distracting and detract from learning. Children (ages 5–7 years, N = 39) were randomly assigned to either i) jointly read a story with an adult, ii) have the story read by a character in a Kinect game, or iii) have the story read by a character in a Kinect game plus in-game activities. Both Kinect-Activities and Book Reading groups had significant gains for High Frequency Words, Active Decoding, and Total Reading Score, but only Kinect-Activities group had significant gain for Sight words (p < .05). Overall, these findings are encouraging for the next generation of digital literacy games.