Article

Brain Gym® Improves Reading

By Kathy Brown, M.Ed.

Cecilia Freeman, M.Ed., a Brain Gym® consultant in Ventura, California, has recently announced her findings from a year-long study of Brain Gym® and its effects on reading scores. She and her project partner, Joyce B. Sherwood, M.A., worked with teachers and students at Saticoy Elementary School in Ventura, California, over the 1998-1999 school year.

Twelve teachers of grades K, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were given Brain Gym® instruction every Monday after school for one hour throughout the school year. In these sessions they learned how to determine which Brain Gym® movements and activities were called for in relation to various academic situations and how to guide the students in doing them.

The teachers then taught the children in their classes how to determine for themselves which Brain Gym® movements they would benefit from at any time. The children became quite self-sufficient in the use of Brain Gym® movements to help them be more productive in any of their academic subjects. Each participating classroom did a minimum of 15 minutes of Brain Gym® per day. Cecilia and Joyce also did classroom presentations as well as one-on-one instruction (October through January) with children who were having the most difficulties in school.

The study was based on the children's reading scores on the Stanford 9 test, a standardized achievement test given to all children in grades 2 through 11 in California. It compared the children's reading percentile scores from May 98 (the end of the previous school year), to those of May 99 (the end of the "Brain Gym®" school year).

The results were impressive both statistically and academically. The "Brain Gym® group" children made almost double the reading improvement of the children in the non-Brain Gym® groups.

Cecilia is quick to point out that gaining percentile points on reading scores is only one indicator of the improvement that the children made through their use of Brain Gym® (albeit the most easily measured one).

Not so easy to measure, but clearly evident to the participating teachers, children, parents and school administrators, was the shift in self-esteem and attitude toward school that came along with the children's developing abilities. One portion of the soon-to-be-published study is filled with comments from children who were amazed to be learning more easily, teachers who were more energized and effective in the classroom, and parents who were grateful and delighted in the growth they were seeing in their children.

Perhaps the greatest legacy of this project is reflected by an experience that Cecilia had recently when she visited the school, almost a year after her last student contacts there. As she arrived she saw children here and there doing Brain Gym® movements as a spontaneous and natural support for their learning process. As children integrate Brain Gym® throughout their days, they take on the experience of personal wholeness and self-esteem that will support them thoughout their lives.

Copies of this study are available for $23.50, which includes postage. Send a check for this amount to Cecilia Freeman, M.Ed. at P.O. Box 198, Ventura, CA, 93002. Cecilia Freeman can be reached by mail at this address, by phone at 805/641-1851, by fax at 805/648-3536, or by email at cecilia@jetlink.net. Her website is www.iamthechild.com.