A Summary of a Brain Gym Research Project on Reading
Cecilia (Freeman) Koester, M.Ed. From Brain Gym Journal, December 2000 Given my deep desire to get Brain Gym into the schools, as well as the enormous amount of conversation about the need for longitudinal research on the effects of Brain Gym¨ on academic skills, in 1998 I set out to do a year long research project at an elementary school.
Above: Fifth-grade students involved in the reading project do Dennison Laterality Repatterning to improve listening and memory skills.
To accomplish this task, I engaged the assistance of Brain Gym Consultant Joyce B. Sherwood. The report for this pilot project offers data supporting the finding that students in grades three, four, and five who used Brain Gym throughout the year improved their reading test scores on a statewide standardized test (the Stanford 9) twice as much as did the students in the control group who did not use Brain Gym as a part of their learning. These are remarkable results-both academically and statistically.
Having formerly worked as a classroom teacher in a special day class for severely challenged students on this particular campus, I approached principal Paul Jablonowski at Saticoy Elementary School in Ventura, California, with the request to conduct this project with some of his students. I received his consent and was met with open arms and great enthusiasm for the project by the twelve teachers whose classrooms would be involved. These teachers agreed to the following:
1. To meet for one hour after school every Monday throughout the school year.
2. To do a minimum of fifteen minutes of Brain Gym each day, integrated into the daily activities of the classroom rather than in a fifteen-minute block of time.
3. To allow students-selected by each teacher-to leave class one time each month for a thirty-minute session of Brain Gym within a small group, facilitated by a Brain Gym Consultant.
4. To invite Brain Gym Consultants to do classroom consultations a minimum of two times during the school year.
5. To allow students’ test scores to be gathered for data comparison. An equal number of student scores were gathered from the school files to serve as a control group, with the permission of the teachers in those classrooms.
Throughout the school year, enthusiasm and follow-through remained high. All of the above agreements were carried out. We arranged a special Parents Night which drew an astonishing crowd of 120 to inform the parents about Brain Gym and explain how their children were using it in the classroom. In addition, the participating classroom teachers papered their walls with suggested Brain Gym materials, instructed students in the task-appropriate use of the Brain Gym movements, and reminded the young people about which Brain Gym activities to do prior to undertaking a homework assignment. The teachers learned the Brain Gym exercises and subsequently taught their students. As I passed through the halls when we were only three months into the project, I saw children using Brain Gym throughout the school day, even without teacher direction.
The students who continued to have difficulty with their reading skills were seen by a Brain Gym Consultant in small groups of two to four. In these groups, balances* were facilitated to remediate specific difficulties related to such areas as attention and comprehension, fine- or gross-motor coordination, or specific academic skills.
The results of this pilot project were phenomenal. Students' self-esteem improved, the classroom climate became more calm, the students reported how much easier their reading had become, and the teachers expressed deep gratitude for this simple, effective tool that enhanced their teaching strategies.
I also gathered test data from the Stanford 9. The following graphs illustrate the effectiveness of the use of Brain Gym in the classroom. Students in each grade level who experienced the Brain Gym activities improved their test scores twice as much as did the students in the control group who did not practice Brain Gym.
Given these results, I believe that all reading programs would benefit by infusing Brain Gym into the school day. Whether the approach is phonics, guided reading, or Reading Recovery, testing should inform instruction-rather than the other way around. Let us use this research to inform ourselves. We need to encourage classroom teachers everywhere to add Brain Gym activities to their teaching strategies.
One grateful parent volunteer summarized community responses with the following letter: "To Whom It May Concern: I am writing in regard to the Brain Gym Program that is being taught at my child’s school. These small, but effective techniques have helped my daughter excel in class immensely. Her ability to focus, concentrate and complete class assignments increase after each morning’s pace exercise. The class as a whole, in which I volunteer two times a week, seems to calm down and show improvement with listening as well as performing the days’ tasks.
I am sure as time goes by, the children will only benefit from this Educational Kinesiology brought to our schools. Each day a different exercise is introduced and children are evaluated individually to meet their own specific needs in class. Getting in touch with your mind through the body sounds fantastic. What a wonderful way to begin a life‹positive, healthy and strong. The perfect way to create a successful adult."
Visit the bookstore to obtain a copy of the entire research report.
This report can be read to glean classroom ideas. It can also be shared with administrators or used to replicate Cecilia’s study.
