Beyond repetition: How prompts and strategic questioning influence motor skill learning in 7-8-year-old children

Abstract This study examined the effects of explicit performance strategies, elicited through external prompts and structured questioning, on motor skill learning in eighty 7–8-year-old children (39 girls). Using a 2 × 2 randomized experimental design, children practiced a novel graphomotor symbol (the Invented Letter Task) across four training conditions varying by the presence or absence of instructional prompts and reflective questioning. Performance speed and accuracy were assessed across acquisition, consolidation, and 5-to-6-week long-term retention phases. Results indicated that prompting significantly accelerated movement speed and enhanced accuracy, establishing a robust behavioral advantage maintained through long-term retention. Furthermore, prompting successfully drove explicit strategic behavior, eliciting a 100% strategy adoption rate compared to only 30% in unprompted conditions. While any degree of strategy engagement (partial or consistent) significantly boosted task speed, the combination of prompting and questioning yielded the most robust, enduring learning gains. These findings suggest that pairing external cognitive scaffolding with active metacognitive reflection optimizes explicit strategic behavior and enhances durable motor learning outcomes in young children.