It’s hard to imagine a group of pre-schoolers or kindergartners sitting still for hours at a time, listening intently — to just about anything. Yet in many cases that is what their teachers are expecting in the age of accountability. And yet, research shows that children who engage in regular physical activity perform better in school, says Dr. Charles Hillman, an associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Along with traditional reading and writing skills, pre-schoolers need lots of movement
“It’s funny that we have expectations of children that we as adults can’t do ourselves,” Hillman said during a recent discussion on BAm! Radio‘s Body, Mind and Child, “ show that EarlyStories also participated in.
The general consensus? Movement of all kind is absolutely critical to the littlest learners, a point Sarah Lee of the Center for Disease Prevention made repeatedly.
The radio discussion follows studies showing that play — and down time — may be just as important to a child’s academic performance as is reading, writing and arithmetic. There’s plenty of verification in recent studies.
The message? Movement matters — and limiting or eliminating recess could have series consequences, despite the need to fit in tougher academics.