Physical Activity Intervention in Preschool Children

In this research project, the investigators addressed if incorporating physical movements with preschoolers will help increase their ability to retain concepts learned in preschool such as letter, sound and number recognition. Movement plays an important role in the brain. Exercise shows many benefits for the brain to help maintain clearer thought, improve memory, and increase activity in the brain, especially the areas involved in memory, attention, and language. The following research includes an eight week study of the implementation of movement breaks with one preschool class, while using another class as a control group. During the two weeks of baseline data, data was collected from every student in both groups on their letter recognition with both upper and lower case, letter sound identification, and number recognition for numbers 0-10. The group that implemented movement breaks had three-five minute scheduled times to stop for movement. Data was collected and compared between the two groups to find differences in their academic performance.