Why Develop Students Kinesthetically? Review of Research Literature

RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPING TEACHERS’ AND STUDENTS’ BODILY-KINESTHETIC INTELLIGENCES

Dr. Sara K. Schneider
sks@thinkingdr.com

Kinesthetic, or body-based, teaching methods have the potential to reach substantial populations that do not necessarily test well verbally, particularly students with special needs. For all students K-12, they are both a way to represent curricular content and a widely accessible means to cultivate critical thinking skills. Not only that, they’re fun to incorporate—often teaching to social and emotional intelligence standards as well. Relatively simply, kinesthetic strategies have the power to compel individual and whole-class attention and energy levels and mental states, and can serve as mnemonic devices. A school-based program, “Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligences: Helping All Students Use Their ‘Thinking Shoes’ Across the Curriculum,” readies teachers to use these methods skillfully to focus, unify, calm, and energize students and to reach those for whom kinesthetic intelligence is a strength. It supports them as they design and model instructional activities grounded in kinesthetic learning principles. See results from past implementations of this program.

THE FINDINGS

Underachievers are almost exclusively tactile/kinesthetic learners (Price, Dunn, Dunn, and Griggs, 1981)
Underachieving students: Made significant gains when their learning style preferences were accommodated (Andrews, 1990; Gadway & Griggs, 1985; Klavas, 1993)
Low achievers: Score above the mean on motor ability, suggesting that bodily-kinesthetic methods may be a strong way to reach them (Doss, 1992)
Math achievement: Sixth graders were able to perform at higher levels in math immediately after 30 and 40 minutes’ physical activity (McNaughten & Gabbard, 1993)
Verbal and spatial performance: Improved with specific applications of yogic breathing (Raghuraj and Telles, 2004)
Spatial (right-brain) learning: Chronic physical activity improved spatial learning performance (Fordyce & Farrar, 1991)
Spatial memory: Yoga breathing increases spatial (right-brain) learning (Naveen et al., 1997)
Improvement in IQ and social adaptation for mentally retarded children (Uma et al., 1989)
Boys’ literacy: Closed literacy gap in one year between boys and girls in grades 3 through 5, including special education students, by introducing more “boy-friendly” teaching strategies, using boys’ “natural assets,” among them kinesthetic learning capacity and interest (King & Gurian 2006)
At-risk students: Kinesthetic methods in teaching literacy skills to first graders were instrumental in closing the achievement gap during second and third grade; by the fourth grade, those who had received kinesthetic instruction excelled over the control group in word comprehension and spelling, and matched them in paragraph meaning, word study skills, and language (Grant, 1985)
Learning disabled students: Yoga improved mental ability, motor coordination, and social skills (Telles and Naveen, 1997)
Physically disabled students: Yoga improved functional ability (Telles and Naveen, 1997)
Middle school students: Both achievement and attitude toward learning are improved with middle school students when tactile-kinesthetic methods are employed, especially when students are actively involved in the learning process (Lister & Ansalone, 2006)
Lowered anxiety: Speculated to be at the root of improved depth perception in girls following intensive yoga training, as compared with the same period of time on general physical activity (Raghurai & Telles, 2003)
Relaxation, concentration, and stillness: More notable with yoga than with moderately strenuous exercise (Hopkins and Hopkins, 1976)
Relaxation and lowered autonomic arousal: Physical Education teachers lowered their heart and respiratory rates following three months of yoga training (Telles et al., 1993)
General well-being: Yoga practice improved sleep, appetite, and decrease in physiological arousal (Telles and Naveen, 1997)
Attention: flexibility and sustainment: Increased with meditation (Rutschman, 2004)
Boys with ADHD: Interventions improving sports skills along with behavior may contain the most potential for improving peer relationships for ADHD males. (Lopez-Williams et al., 2005)
Planning Time: Girls 10-13 showed a significant reduction in planning time on a strategic task post- yoga training (Satish & Telles, 2001)
Visual perceptual sensitivity: Yoga training, particularly when combined with attention and memory games, produced a significant increase in visual perceptual sensitivity (Manjanuth & Telles, 1999; Raghurai & Telles, 2002)

THE STUDIES

Doss, R. R. 1992. The relationship between low achievement and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence in fourth and fifth graders. Doctoral dissertation, University of North Texas.
Fordyce, D. E., and Farrar, R. P. 1991. Physical activity effects on hippocampal and parietal cortical cholinergic function and spatial learning in F344 rats. Behavioural Brain Research. 43(2):115-123.
Grant, Sister Marie. 1985. The kinesthetic approach to teaching: Building a foundation for learning. Journal of Learning Disabilities. 18(8):455-462.
Hannaford, C. 1995. Smart moves: Why learning is not all in your head. Salt Lake City: Great River Books.
Hopkins, L. J., & Hopkins, J. T. 1976. Yoga in psychomotor training. Academic Therapy, 11:461-465.
King, K., & Gurian, M. 2006. Teaching to the minds of boys. Educational Leadership. September. Pp. 56 – 61.
Lister, D., & Ansalone, G. 2006. Utilizing modality theory to achieve academic success. Educational Research Quarterly. 30(2):19-29.
Lopez-Williams, A., Chacko, A., Wymbs, B. T., et al. 2005. Athletic performance and social behavior as predictors of peer acceptance in children diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Emotional=and Behavioral Disorders. 13(3):173-180.
Manjunath, N. K., and Telles, S. 1999. Improvement in visual perceptual sensitivity in children following yoga training. 17(2):41-45.
Morris, J. 1976. Meditation in the classroom. Learning, 5:22-27.
Murdoch, M. H. 1979. Meditation with young children. Gifted Child Quarterly, 23:195-206.
McNaughten, D., and Gabbard, C. 1993. Physical exertion and immediate mental performance of sixth-grade children. Perceptual and Motor Skills. 77(3, pt. 2):1155-1159. December.
Naveen, K. V., Nagarathna, R., Nagendra, H. R., and Telles, S. 1997. Yoga breathing through a particular nostril increases spatial memory without lateral effects. Psychological Reports. 81(2):555-561.
Raghuraj, P., and Telles, S. 2002. Improvement in spatial and temporal measures of visual perception following yoga training. Journal of Indian Psychology. 20(1):23-31.
Raghuraj, P., and Telles, S. 2003. A randomized trial comparing the effects of yoga and physical activity programs on depth perception in school children. Journal of Indian Psychology. 21(2):54-60.
Raghuraj, P. and Telles, S. 2004. Right nostril yoga breathing influences ipsilateral components of middle latency auditory evoked potentials. Neurological Science. 25:274-280.
Rayner, L. J., Gerber, B. L., and Wiley, L. P. 2003. Gifted achievers and gifted underachievers: The impact of learning style preferences in the classroom. The Journal of Secondary Gifted Education. 14(4): 197-204.
Rutschman, J. R. 2004. Effects of techniques of receptive meditation and relaxation on attentional processing. Canadian Undergraduate Journal of Cognitive Science. pp. 6-16.
Satish, C., and Telles, S. 2001. Improved performance in the Tower of London test following yoga. Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology. 45(3):351-354.
Telles, S., Nagarathna, R., Nagendra, H. R., and Desiraju, T. 1993. Physiological changes in sports teachers following three months of training in yoga. Indian Journal of Medical Sciences. 47(10):235-238.
Telles, S., and Naveen, K. V. 1997. Yoga for rehabilitation: An overview. Indian Journal of Medical Sciences. 51(4):123-127.
Tremarche, P. V., Robinson, E. M., Graham, L. B., Physical education and its effect on elementary testing results. Physical Educator. 64(2):173–180.
Uma, K., Nagendra, H. R., Ngarathna, R., Veidehi, S., et al. 1989. The integrated approach of yoga: A therapeutic tool for mentally retarded children: A one-year controlled study. Journal of Mental Deficiency Research. 33(5):415-421.