I love the comics section of the Sunday
newspaper, and Baby Blues is one of my favorite strips. This one, from June 9, 2013, really got my attention.
What could be so significant about a fruitless
search for teeter-totters?
This is a topic I care a lot about, and one I
discuss in my book, Educate Your Brain. For this blog entry, I’m going to quote from
Chapter 7, “Move Into Learning.” You’ll see what I mean about teeter-totters,
and more. It’s all about the vestibular system (part of the inner ear), and its
direct link to eye-teaming (without which we will be unable to easily read).
New to these concepts? Read on:
Movement and reading
Every moment of the day, as we move, sit, lie down, or stand, the experience of gravity activates a special sensory apparatus in our inner ear: the vestibular system. This body-balance mechanism helps us to always know where up is, so we can maintain equilibrium as we shift from one position to the next.
Every moment of the day, as we move, sit, lie down, or stand, the experience of gravity activates a special sensory apparatus in our inner ear: the vestibular system. This body-balance mechanism helps us to always know where up is, so we can maintain equilibrium as we shift from one position to the next.
An important aspect of the
vestibular system is that it’s always communicating with our eyes, sending the
information they need to maintain a steady view of the world even when we’re
moving. When our vestibular system is well developed, our eyes are happy to
track across a line of print as we read and work together for other tasks.
Without good vestibular development, eye-teaming and tracking, and therefore
reading, can be challenging—or exhausting.
Effective vestibular
training comes from the kinds of whole- body movement that should be common in
childhood: running, hopping, dancing, tumbling. If children aren’t inclined (or
allowed) to do those things, next best would be playing on merry- go-rounds and
teeter-totters—except for the fact that this equipment has vanished from our
playgrounds. Children who are uncoordinated, overweight, or otherwise
disinclined to run and play have lost these more passive means of vestibular
training.
The only remaining
opportunity for passive vestibular stimulation on most playgrounds today is on
the swings. Children with the very natural desire to tightly twist up the swing
so they can experience the vestibular activation of rapid untwisting are often
reprimanded: “That’s not what swings are for! Swing straight!” Maybe we should
be lining kids up to twist on the swings.
Vestibular activation is
one of the reasons we encourage people to Cross Crawl slowly (s-l-o-w-l-y!),
because it leaves them balancing on one foot so much of the time. Doing
Hook-ups while standing is another vestibular challenge, with big benefits:
A teacher I know invited her
first-grade students to decide when they were ready to “graduate” from doing
Hook-ups sitting to doing it standing—and then to standing with their eyes
closed. They loved the vestibular challenge, and she was astounded at the
difference it made in their learning. She said, “As soon as a child could stand
in Hook-ups with eyes closed, he or she made rapid growth in reading and
overall ability to focus and attend. I never knew a healthy body-balance system
was so necessary for learning.”1
This chapter goes on to describe movements
that can improve body-balance, and much, much more about the relationship between movement and learning.
In the meantime – want to read more easily?
Get moving, and see what a difference it makes!
With warm regards,
Kathy
P.S. Ok -- you may say that the playgrounds in the comic strip do indeed show some more modern balance-oriented equipment. I'm using this comic strip as a conversation starter about the whole topic of playgrounds offering less and less equipment that promotes vestibular activation (teeter-totters and merry-go-rounds were fabulous for this). Plus -- some playgrounds I see have nothing on them at all that moves. I understand the liability issues behind these decisions -- but still -- Oh, for the 1960s!
P.S. Ok -- you may say that the playgrounds in the comic strip do indeed show some more modern balance-oriented equipment. I'm using this comic strip as a conversation starter about the whole topic of playgrounds offering less and less equipment that promotes vestibular activation (teeter-totters and merry-go-rounds were fabulous for this). Plus -- some playgrounds I see have nothing on them at all that moves. I understand the liability issues behind these decisions -- but still -- Oh, for the 1960s!
Footnotes:
1 - Educate Your Brain - p. 50-51. Copyright © Kathy Brown, 2012. All rights reserved.
1 - Educate Your Brain - p. 50-51. Copyright © Kathy Brown, 2012. All rights reserved.
Notes:
• I submitted the appropriate email asking for
permission to use this Baby Blues strip in my blog, and never heard back. I’m
taking the chance that it’s OK, copyright-wise. www.babyblues.com
• Photo of girl standing in Hook-ups:
Copyright © Laird Brown Photography. All rights reserved.
Copyright 2013 by Kathy Brown. All rights reserved.
Copyright 2013 by Kathy Brown. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment