Activities that Practice Fine Motor Skills May Improve Attention for Female Students

Another study examined whether movement-based activities in the classroom can improve learning-related skills, particularly attention. This study took a different approach from the others that I have examined in this blog by focusing on the effect of movements involving fine motor skills. The study set out to test the Montessori theory that movement activities for children are effective in capturing their complete attention and that practicing such activities, especially fine-motor activities, can improve their overall attention. Interestingly, the study found an improvement in attention for female participants in the experimental group but no significant improvement for males.

A total of 68 kindergarten children from five different classrooms participated in the study, which took place in a suburban area in one of the Rocky Mountain States. All students received the regular kindergarten curriculum, which already included some typical practice of fine motor skills, such as cutting and drawing. There was no change for the thirty two students in the control group. The 36 students in the experimental group received addition movement activities that required fine motor skills. There were a total of fifty different activity boxes used in the duration of the study in which students had to move objects in a specific way using tools such as tongs or spoons. For example, in one activity box, students had to carefully place toy tropical fish onto different spool “pedestals” in a certain order using tweezers and then carefully replace the fish in the reverse order. The different activities were phased in and out of the classroom so that students always had several choices. Students practiced these activities for fifteen minutes a day for a total of six months. The activities were also available during free-choice times, so some students may have practiced them more.

All students in both groups were given a pre-test and a post-test using the attention subtest of the Cognitive Assessment System (CAS). Female students in the experimental group showed a statistically significant improvement in their attention on the post-test, while male students showed no significant change. The reasons for this discrepancy are yet to be explored, but perhaps female students found the tasks more interesting and engaging. Hopefully further studies will discover similar activities that can help improve attention for male students. In the meantime, it may be worth it for early education teachers to dedicate some classroom time to activities that specifically practice fine-motor skills in the hopes of improving attention for at least some students.

Stewart, R.A., Rule, A.C., & Giordano, D. A. (2007). The effect of fine motor skills activities on kindergarten student attention. Early Childhood Education Journal, 35 (2).

Another Study Shows Benefits of Physically Active Classrooms

A study by researchers Donnelly and Lambourne explored the connection between physical movement, cardiovascular health, weight and learning. Researchers found that a simple classroom-based intervention to increase physical activity level also improved fitness, decreased bodily fat and improved learning for the participants. In the article "Classroom-Based Physical Activity, Cognition and Academic Achievement" the researchers described their long-term study of 24 elementary schools that examined the effects of implementing a classroom-based physical activity program called Physical Activity Across the Curriculum, or PAAC, over the course of three years on students' cardiovascular fitness, BMI (body-mass index to measure fat percentage), and academic test performance compared to a control group. In the fourteen schools that implemented PAAC, students participated in lessons from a variety of subjects that incorporated exercise into learning activities. The lessons were about ten minutes each, and participants completed about 90 total minutes of PAAC each week. The researchers found numerous benefits to the intervention group, including a lower percentage of bodily fat, a higher percentage of daily physical activity, and improvements in reading, math, spelling and composite test scores when compared to the control group.

The PAAC program was created around the philosophy that physical activity can and should take place in a variety of settings. The program encourages schools to move away from the idea that students must go to a designated place such as the gym and change into different clothing in order to exercise. Instead, PAAC promotes incorporating vigorous movement into classroom learning. An example of a PAAC lesson to learn multiplication describe in the article would be a fixed number of students (i.e. 5 students) running a fixed number of laps (i.e. 5 laps) and then having to calculate the total number of laps that were run by students (5 x 5 = 25). The PAAC program requires very little to no prep time for the teachers and no special materials. However, as evidenced by this study, the benefits were numerous.

In all my searchers for a PAAC official website, all I found was this study. It seems that this study was an initial trial of the effectiveness of the PAAC program, and hopefully it will become more readily available for educators. Nonetheless, any teacher with a little creativity and motivation could take up the PAAC philosophy and find ways to include exercise in their lessons. The nine lessons of about ten minutes each over the course of a week that was implemented in the study is not too daunting of a number for any teacher, and the possible benefits to students can be numerous. I hope to find ways to implement lessons similar to those described in this study in my own classroom.

Donnelly, J.E. & Lambourne, K. (2011). Classroom-based physical activity, cognition, and academic achievement. Preventative Medicine, 52, S36-S42.