News
Motor skills exercises show benefits
7 Jan 2009
A group of five to nine-year-olds were evaluated on the effects of exercises designed to improve their posture and boost their physical development. Children in the groups spent 10 minutes every day doing exercises to classical music or the beat of a metronome, such as the finger exercise. Ruth Marlee, behaviour support teacher for Northumberland County Council, said the initial findings also suggest that as children become more aware of balance and co-ordination, their behaviour improves. She said: "They seem more able to sit still and hold pens with more accuracy and a better grip."
The county council has trained 75 classroom assistants and practitioners in the programme by the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester. The Institute's Director, Sally Goddard Blythe, also carried out research on 800 four to nine-year olds, which found that many children have delays in their physical development. She questioned whether young children were ready for some of the early learning goals in the Early Years Foundation Stage, including those for reading, writing and numeracy. She said: We do not take physical development into account. There is an emphasis on the fine motor and cognitive skills, without asking if children have the physical development in place for these skills. Children need free, physical movement in lots of different environments.
Ms Goddard Blythe has published a book called What babies and children really need, in which she looks at the science of early childhood development. The book argues that if babies are strapped into car seats and buggies for too long, it affects their development because their movement is limited.
(Nursery World, 7 January 2009)
