The Effectiveness of Teaching Children Vocabulary with Animated Music Videos

 Programs that engage young children in movement and song to help them learn are popular but experimental evidence on their impact is sparse. 

This study used an RCT to evaluate the effectiveness of Big Word Club (BWC), a classroom program that uses music and dance videos for 3-5 minutes per day to increase vocabulary. The researchers conducted a field experiment with 818 preschool and kindergarten students in 47 schools in three U.S. states.

Treated students scored higher on a test of words targeted by the program (0.30 SD) after four months of use and this effect persisted for two months.