Teachers use organized play to prepare students
Who would’ve guessed that hopscotch could help children learn to read?
That is the idea behind the new “sensory pathway” outside the pre-K classroom at the Garrison School. The pathway is a series of “kinesthetic-learning” activities where children jump, crawl and hop through a course of colorful floor and wall stickers — and also learn their letters, numbers and colors.
“The kids just think they’re having fun, playing in the hallway,” said James Yap, the district’s director of innovation and learning. “But they’re learning.”
Debbie Earle, the teacher, said the pathway is an important part of preparing children for kindergarten. “When they’re doing things and saying things at the same time, the learning soaks in more,” she said.
It also energizes her students. “At this age, you can only teach in short increments,” she said. “When they’re playing like this, you can do something fun and bring them back to class.”
Funded with a $1,300 grant from the Garrison Children’s Education Fund, the pathway is a product of Fit and Fun Playscapes, a company founded by Nelsonville resident and former Haldane PTA co-president Pamela Gunther.
Gunther, who is an architect, explained she was inspired to start her business in 2008 when one of her children was in kindergarten at Haldane. She and other members of the playground committee painted colorful lines on the blacktop for games like hopscotch and foursquare.
She also saw how physical activity helped her oldest child, who had attention deficit challenges. “Movement is a key factor to help children regulate their bodies so that they can maintain focus in the classroom,” said Gunther. Founded in 2011, Fit and Fun has installed its learning products at 8,000 locations in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe.
Timothy Davis, who teaches in SUNY Cortland’s physical education department, has studied the benefits of playground activities. He says the pathway helps teach what is known as “midline crossing,” where children move their feet and hands across their bodies. That helps develop the right-to-left-eye midline crossing movement that children need to learn to read.
Pathways activities are also helpful for a generation of students who are showing developmental delays because of excess screen time, said Davis. He cited a 2019 study at the University of South Carolina which showed that 75 percent of preschoolers show delays in their ability to run, jump, hop, throw, bounce and catch a ball.
“As a whole, we’ve declined in our movement abilities because we’re sedentary,” Davis said, adding that activities like those on the sensory pathways can help children quickly catch up.
