Movement a strategy for All students including those with ADD and ADHD, autism.
For students who experience ADD or ADHD, for students with autism and for all who are not inclined to sit in a chair for long periods of time but learn kinesthetically, through tasks and experiential knowledge, movement is a vital strategy to use in the classroom. If you think that includes almost every student – you’re right! It benefits all students, not just those who are disabled. Countless research studies have shown the benefit of movement for all people, but in particular, movement is proven to develop the brain. Stronger brains are more able to adapt to any environment.
Movement can be a great way to memorize facts. Movement can be a great way to get out some energy so that you can focus on what you’re supposed to be learning. It is not possible to describe the many, many ways that movement is used in teaching.
However, the expert in the field of movement and education, Joanne Laura, has provided a wealth of tools and techniques to use movement in teaching students with autism. Her specific techniques have benefited many students and are all based on sound research of the human brain and its response to mimicry and movement.
As an example of a universally designed lesson using movement, we can see this video that calls for movement, throughout, while teaching the long and short vowel sounds. In this lesson the teacher models with movements the words and their sounds. She is moving and pronouncing the sounds and pointing to the words and pictures as well as using gestures to be very clear as to the words meaning. Students join in and together they practice reading the words. After practice many times students will be able to pronounce the words and read the words on their own. They will also know what are the long and short vowel sounds.