Promoting movement provoking learning

“I like to move it move it!”

For those of you who are familiar with my work, you won’t be surprised that we have started with a song. I’m Ali McClure, an education consultant, and I’ll be discussing the importance of movement in learning.

As educators we know how crucial the first five years of a child’s life are for their overall development and for their future educational journey. But do we understand how movement affects every milestone along the way?

As the opening lyrics suggest, the need to “move it, move it” plays an important role in the development of a child. Physical movement during learning not only enhances cognitive connections in the brain, but it builds connections between the two brain hemispheres as well, providing foundations for future learning. So why not add movement to learning?

The driven curriculum

In the UK, Ofsted-registered settings are required to follow the standards set out by the EYFS framework for the learning, development and care of their children from birth to five years old. While these required standards mean a shared curriculum, which has its merits, it also results in what I refer to as the ‘driven curriculum’. Yes, a driven curriculum gives us strategies of what we need to teach, and it ensures that every child will broadly cover the same areas. However, a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t always sustainable. As educators who understand that each child is unique, we can do better.

According to government guidelines and British Heart Foundation recommendations, it’s important for children from one to five-years-old to be physically active for a minimum of 180 minutes per day, where possible. Pair this fact with the above-mentioned finding that physical movement in young children enhances brain function, and educators have the golden ticket to learning: get those kids moving!

Movement in every stage of development

While considering the importance of movement, it is also key to understand that there is a crucial sequence of physical development stages in young children, and that each stage must be physically mastered. Furthermore, in my years as an educator, I have noticed a connection between children who have been unable to master one or more of these crucial stages of development, and their ability to do well academically later on. Let’s look at physical movement in these developmental stages, and its importance to future learning.

I like to say that the stages of physical development progress from the cranial to caudal stage, and from the proximal to distal stage. I believe children learn in this progression as well. As I explain to the children I teach, “you have to teach your shoulder to write before your elbow, before your wrist and before your fingers.” In other words, we can’t expect precise, fine motor skills to blossom if we haven’t capitalized on the stage of development that comes first: the active, large muscle exercise that prepares the body and brain for more careful activities.

However, there are children who miss out on mastering these early physical stages. In my experience, these children are the ones who then struggle with the next stages of development. This affects their learning. Let’s look at how I’ve helped one such child.

Jayden's story

This spring I had the privilege of working with Jayden. Jayden was in Reception, and his teachers had been encouraged to get him, and his peers, ready for school. However, staff informed me that Jayden was struggling with learning, language, self-regulation, and self-esteem. They wondered if he had some learning disabilities, and if he was possibly dyslexic. As I began to work with Jayden, I noticed that there were physical actions he was unable to perform as a child his age should. He was unable to wave goodbye with the usual wrist pivot.  His gait was ungainly, he had to hold onto walls when navigating simple steps, and he was unable to bounce on the space hoppers (large rubber balls) that the other children his age used in the garden. He just didn’t have the strength in his hips to be able to push his legs down and bounce up.

So how did I help Jayden, and what do I recommend for many children like him who are struggling to master basic physical actions, and who are thought to have learning disabilities as well?

I get them moving.

With Jayden, I started with balance. We did lots of activities to work on his balance, trying to strengthen his core muscles first. We used balance boards. We jumped along lines I drew on the pavement. We hopped, we drew big imaginary circles on the walls, we threw balls.

Then, I took it a step further during our tutoring sessions. When Jayden had chants as part of the learning day, we threw balls in rhythm with the chant. When we had to practise some basic spelling, we chanted the words while he lay on his back doing cycling motions; he worked on his spelling and maths, and he strengthened his hips! This physical movement is not an add-in to the curriculum. It should be throughout!

Over several months, this physical exercise and core movement helped Jayden to gain confidence and achieve milestones, both physical and academic, that he had previously missed.

Physical activity in everything

I encourage physical activity in everything! It’s all about how you engineer your environment.

In my classroom, we move. I have the children bend down and come back up again as they sing. Instead of having them raise their hands when they know an answer, I tell them to touch their left shoulder with their right hand, or tap their head, or balance on one foot. Then I watch them – all 30 kids – and I notice the children who aren’t able to do these activities. I find that very often, these same children are struggling academically too, just as Jayden was. Then, we work with these children...using movement.

Find that struggling child, find out if there are gaps in their physical development, and then fill in the gaps through movement.

In the outdoor area, monkey bars and play areas with large loose parts strengthen the shoulder activities and encourage shoulder pivots. When on monkey bars, children swing their legs and strengthen their core. While playing with large loose parts, they engage their core muscles and develop dynamic balance while moving about. Now, monkey bars and large-muscle outdoor play may not be in the national curriculum, but the movements children accomplish in these areas are crucial to learning.

I also love including a stretching and yoga session for the children. During this session they relax their muscles and improve their flexibility, and of course, get those brains humming.

Movement is key even for the smallest children in the baby room. Tummy-time (little and often is best) strengthens the muscles which babies will need for the later stages of crawling and sitting. Allowing babies to reach for their toys teaches them to explore and stretches their small muscles. A fun way to get babies moving is by having a treasure box of toys that the children can search through and grab. This encourages the baby’s entire body to move around and in particular, strengthens their arms through reaching and stretching.

Five top tips for educators

So here are my five tips for educators interested in adding more movement to their children’s day:

• Balance the demands of the driven curriculum with what you know is needed for that child at that stage (not age) of their learning.
• Understand the stages of physical development, and their importance to a child’s learning outcomes.
• Investigate. Take the time to notice what is really going on with each individual child. Observe them during activities. Help those children who aren’t keeping up.
• Add intentional physical exercise to the curriculum in coordination with their academic activities.
• Encourage movement in and out of the classroom wherever and whenever possible!

Conclusion

Giving children the opportunity to “move it move it” as part of their everyday learning allows them to develop to their greatest potential both physically and cognitively.

The difference this focus on movement has made for me as an educator cannot be overstated. Allowing the children to move during learning has had an incredibly positive impact over the years in the settings where I have worked.  When movement is embedded in continuous provision, and is encouraged throughout everyday routines, I have seen children once thought to have learning disabilities achieve astonishing milestones.

By combining movement with academic activities, and encouraging it in all aspects of a child’s day, we as educators can foster an environment where children flourish, setting them on a path toward lifelong success.