The Blog

Study: Physical activity means more concentration in the classroom

Put that pencil down and get on your feet, kids! The new rule in education is about to reinforce what we here at Ask, Listen, Learn believe is to be the key to kid’s success both socially and academically: saying YES to a healthy lifestyle.

As Back to School season commences, have you watched how your kid does their homework? How they concentrate best after a long day at school?

Recently The New York Times posted on their Well blog about a study in The Journal of Pediatrics explaining how kids with ADHD, or even kids just with trouble concentrating, are more susceptive to digesting and retaining information if they have time to be physically active.

According to the study (2013), “following a single 20-minute bout of exercise, both children with ADHD and healthy match control children exhibited greater response accuracy and stimulus-related processing, with the children with ADHD also exhibiting selective enhancements in regulatory processes, compared with after a similar duration of seated reading. In addition, greater performance in the areas of reading and arithmetic were observed following exercise in both groups.”

The blog post in the NYT explained the importance of PE classes, which were some of the first programs to be cut in the economic downturn. It’s important to remember as both educators and parents, how to best support your kid’s need to be physically active. It’s difficult to sometimes remember what it was like to have that need to move, especially if your kid is affected by ADHD.

Read the entire blog here and comment below on how you think physical activity would affect your student.

We believe that saying YES to a healthy lifestyle is the key to a confident growing person. Fostering their creativity, or allowing them to run, can give them the tools that will help them become who they want to be later in life.

Here’s why we created an interactive game to get kids moving and thinking about making smart choices.

Ask, Listen, Learn made an interactive game because being active and physical can help increase productivity and attentiveness in the classroom.