How schools ruined recess — and four things needed to fix it

Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

Another wonderful article in the Washington post written by Angela Hanscom from TimberNook about the importance of play-based activities to help children build their fine motor skills, reflexes, balance and coordination, and sensory systems. All of these activities support what we do at our center and how it’s helping child development in the classroom to support speech and language, reading, writing and math.

With all the discussion of shortening recess or removing it altogether, we are seeing a rise in sensory issues as you see here. More and more children aren’t getting the sensory stimulation they need, which is causing more behavior issues in the classroom and disconnections in the brain, making it tough for kids to learn, process information and listen to the teacher.

Many times it is difficult for parents to understand how movement therapy and sensory activities help their children learn. Hascom’s interaction with a colleague reflects this same experience, “I’ve been telling parents this for years and no one ever understands me. I’ve learned to keep quiet. You’ll see. People just don’t get it. Her faith in people was lost. I, on the other hand, would not give up that easily.”

Through play-based activities, we see amazing results in our students as they excel in school and reach their potential.

As Hascom says in the article, “What if we took a totally different approach to recess instead? A therapeutic approach that values the needs of the whole child and views recess as a form of prevention instead of simply time to get ‘energy out.’ What if we let children fully move their bodies during recess time, let them get dirty, and even test out new theories? What would recess look like then?”

If we were to change our child’s experience at recess, I’m confident we would see our children excel and progress in many areas of academics as well as development.

Sensory Processing 101: Why All Parents and Teachers Should Read Sensory Processing 101

4 Ways to Make Recess Effective through Sensory Activities

To read her four suggestions of how to change recess for our kids, click here.

Integrated Learning Strategies is a Utah-based center dedicated to helping mainstream children and children with learning challenges achieve academic success. Our services provide kids with non-traditional tutoring programs within the Davis County, Kaysville, Layton, Syracuse, Farmington, and Centerville areas. Areas to find Integrated Learning Strategies include: Reading tutors in Kaysville, Math tutors in Kaysville, Common Core Tutors in Kaysville, Tutors in Utah, Utah Tutoring Programs