Posted by Melia Dicker on Oct 20, 2009 - 11:19 AM
It's no surprise that punishing kids by taking away their recess is counter-productive. Kids learn better when they're active and spend time in nature. Psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Brown says that play is "a fundamental biological process."The best way to improve children’s performance in the classroom may be to take them out of it.
New research suggests that play and down time may be as important to a child’s academic experience as reading, science and math, and that regular recess, fitness or nature time can influence behavior, concentration and even grades.
A study published this month in the journal Pediatrics studied the links between recess and classroom behavior among about 11,000 children age 8 and 9. Those who had more than 15 minutes of recess a day showed better behavior in class than those who had little or none. Although disadvantaged children were more likely to be denied recess, the association between better behavior and recess time held up even after researchers controlled for a number of variables, including sex, ethnicity, public or private school and class size.
Tags for this entry:
