There’s no doubt about it. When kids have to sit through long lessons in their classrooms, no matter what the subject, they begin to fidget and lose focus. Research has focused on incorporating activity in the classroom through short brain breaks or energizers.
Kendall Stallings, a first-grade math teacher in Baltimore, Maryland, feels that brief breaks aren’t enough, especially for the younger set. Instead, he proposes integrating movement into the classroom as an instructional tool, as newer research has shown it aids in content mastery.
Movement integration appears more frequently in literacy curricula, as movement can help develop phonemic awareness and letter-sound recognition. For example, the teacher might ask students to “sky write” letters before putting them on paper or to tap out phenomes on their fingers.
Stallings wondered if the benefit would extend to other subjects, specifically math. He researched how movement could improve math instruction by building number sense and fact fluency — the numerical equivalents of letter-sound recognition and phonemic awareness. And he found that integrating movement works well with elementary math lessons, allowing students to demonstrate their understanding in a kinesthetic manner and engage physically with abstract ideas.
As an example, she noted that many of his 1st graders struggled to count backward from 20. So, he lined them up and had them take turns counting down and jumping backward when it was their turn. Instead of just recitation, they saw the concept come to life through their movements during the exercise.
Another teaching strategy rooted in movement, embodies the idea of numbers in the teens. He had students perform 10 jumping jacks and then switch to clapping four times. The switch to clapping allows them to understand that teen numbers are 10 plus a number of ones.
Since students are both moving and learning as they move, it reduces their need for movement breaks unrelated to the lesson, and it reduces both the inevitable teacher redirections and students distracted from what they need to learn.
Angela Hanscom, a pediatric occupational therapist, explains in her book Balanced and Barefoot, “In order to appeal to all types of learners, it is best to incorporate movement into the actual learning experience.” Movement unrelated to the lesson “may also distract most children and actually hinder their learning.”
The bottom line is that research shows that movement-integration consistency yields statistically significant increases in math assessment scores, as well as increased curiosity for the students learning the subject. That curiosity gives students greater focus and, ultimately, an improved understanding of any type of subject matter. Especially for young learners, it becomes an ideal instructional strategy.
Resource:
Stallings, Kendall. (September 22, 2023). “Get Kids Moving During Math Lessons. Trust Me, It Helps Them Learn.” Education Week.
Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-get-kids-moving-during-math-lessons-trust-me-it-helps-them-learn/2023/09.
