Greetings Educators and Coaches!
As helping professionals, we are focused on ways we can lead students to success. Nearly every skill we hope to impart to our students may be easier when we use simple, effective neurodevelopmental movements. This is very possible as you will see from the inspiring stories here.
Second Grade Teacher Transforms Her Students' Lives with Neurodevelopmental Movements
Anne Nguyen Pham is a second grade teacher who uses integrative and neurodevelopmental movements in the classroom each day [from the Brain and Sensory Foundations course].
In this video interview, Anne shares how she helps her students become eager readers. Not only that, in the process she sees:
- Behavior problems diminish
- Students become calm
- Students can focus and learn
- Students are more positive
"They are happy", says Anne.
Anne is happy too because her classroom is calmer and she knows she is bringing great value to the children that will go beyond just the school year.
See adorable comments from her students at the end of the video.
The Brain and Sensory Foundations activities are excellent for optimizing performance in any endeavor, so coaches love these tools too! In the story below, children were given sensory-motor activites for three months. Their reading scores improved and so did their coordination and sports abilities.
Sensory Motor Training Helps Struggling Readers—A One Year Gain in 3 months!
The following story was told in the book: Hjärnvägen till inlärning, (Brain road to learning), Brain Books, Sweden
by Lars-Eric Berg & Anna Cramér (Emphasis added).
A school south of Stockholm had encountered a problem before a class fled from year 3 to year 4. The teacher assessed nine of the students to be as poor readers that the school was considering adding a resource teacher at half-time for these. Special education teachers did a reading test (DLS) for second grade and found that students’ reading level was so low that they should have had special education in second grade! They were in fact a year behind the class three standard in reading skills.
In February I started to work with the group one day a week. Each student got twenty minutes alone with me. I noticed their motor problems and prescribed individual training programmes. We worked with cross lateral movements, primitive reflex integration, balance and Brain Gym movements.
Their special education teachers were present and continued the motor training on their lessons. In a corner of the classroom the students had lots of large paper and pencils, crayons and watercolours. They were allowed to go to the corner any time to produce Lazy 8s.
We had parent meetings every three weeks. The parents were taught how to help the children with their daily exercise programme. The home play programme was a bit different from the movements the children did during school. At home the children were working mainly with RMT, Rhythmical Movement Training.
No additional reading instruction was inserted into the class.
In May, a special education teacher evaluated the children’s reading skills again. This time with the reading test (DLS) for the third year. She found that all the students except one were normal readers for grade 3.
In three months, the group had caught up a year’s reading development!
Statements from parents testified about many positive transfer effects. Some boys had gotten so much better coordinated that they could play in the football team where they had not been playing so much. Their status and self-confidence had grown. A girl who previously isolated herself and who had no peers began to be more outgoing. She joined the Girl Scouts and took home peers, which never had happened before, according to the mother.
Thanks to the focus on sensory-motor training the students became better readers and the school did not have to hire an extra part time [resource teacher] to the class. It was really a win-win project.
Imagine results like these for the students in your classroom. Even if you have only 5 minutes a day, research (Grigg et al., 2023) shows that doing rhythmic movements with students can boost reading scores!
Reference
Grigg, T. M., Culpan, I., & Turnbull, W. F. (2023). Primitive Reflex Integration and Reading Achievement in the Classroom. J Neurol Exp Neurosci, 9(01), 18-26.
Sonia Story, MS has been teaching neurodevelopmental movements since 2006.
She is an honors graduate with a Bachelor's degree in biology/psychology and a Master’s degree in Movement Sciences.
Sonia developed the Brain and Sensory Foundations program to provide comprehensive training in neurodevelopmental movements—combining innate rhythmic movements, play, primitive reflexes, and postural reflexes.
She is the author of The Importance of Reflex Integration and the Evidence eBook, giving the rationale and evidence basis for using neurodevelopmental movements for helping with challenges such as ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorders, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, visual skill deficits, poor social skills, gross and fine motor delays and other neurodevelopmental and behavioral disorders.
Her work is featured in numerous podcasts, summits, and conferences, and in the books Almost Autism: Recovering Children from Sensory Processing Disorder; Special Ed Mom Survival Guide; Family Health Revolution; and Same Journey, Different Paths—Stories of Auditory Processing Disorder.
Sonia’s mission is to help children and families experience the profound benefits of neurodevelopmental and integrative movements for more functional and fulfilling lives.