Importance of Movement

Movement is essential to learning. It is the natural state of a child. Movement awakens and activates many of our mental capacities.

We have known for years that children who do not learn to crawl may exhibit learning difficulties. Children who have reading and writing problems have neural pathway problems that are underdeveloped. Movement integrates and anchors new information and experience into our neural networks. Learning involves the building of skills which occurs through the movement of muscles.

Lack of intellectual and movement development integration is a huge problem for our children in today's world. In our education system, which does not encourage movement and demands large amounts of sedentary formal instructional time, we are creating children who have difficulties with abstract learning, higher thinking skills and creative thinking. What we are doing as a result of this is stifling a child's natural learning process by not allowing him/her to move. Movement helps us to comprehend and anchor new experiences and is the source of joy and learning. In order to learn we must keep moving!