Swimming kids are smarter

Children who learn how to swim at a young age are reaching many developmental milestones earlier than the norm.

Researchers from the Griffith Institute for Educational Research surveyed parents of 7000 under-fives from Australia, New Zealand and the US over three years.

A further 180 children aged 3, 4 and 5 years have been involved in intensive testing, making it the world’s most comprehensive study into early-years swimming.

Lead researcher Professor Robyn Jorgensen says the study shows young children who participate in early-years swimming achieve a wide range of skills earlier than the normal population.

“Many of these skills are those that help young children into the transition into formal learning contexts such as pre-school or school.

“The research also found significant differences between the swimming cohort and non-swimmers regardless of socio-economic background.

“While the two higher socio-economic groups performed better than the lower two in testing, the four SES groups all performed better than the normal population.

The researchers also found there were no gender differences between the research cohort and the normal population.

As well as achieving physical milestones faster, children also scored significantly better in visual-motor skills such as cutting paper, colouring in and drawing lines and shapes, and many mathematically-related tasks. Their oral expression was also better as well as in the general areas of literacy and numeracy.

“Many of these skills are highly valuable in other learning environments and will be of considerable benefit for young children as they transition into pre-schools and school.”

Preschoolers’ Counting Abilities Relate to Future Math Performance

Along with reciting the days of the week and the alphabet, adults often practice reciting numbers with young children. Now, new research from the University of Missouri suggests reciting numbers is not enough to prepare children for math success in elementary school. The research indicates that counting, which requires assigning numerical values to objects in chronological order, is more important for helping preschoolers acquire math skills.

“Reciting means saying the numbers from memory in chronological order, whereas counting involves understanding that each item in the set is counted once and that the last number stated is the amount for the entire set,” said Louis Manfra, an assistant professor in MU’s Department of Human Development and Family Studies. “When children are just reciting, they’re basically repeating what seems like a memorized sentence. When they’re counting, they’re performing a more cognitive activity in which they’re associating a one-to-one correspondence with the object and the number to represent a quantity.”

“Counting gives children stronger foundations when they start school,” Manfra said. “The skills children have when they start kindergarten affect their trajectories through early elementary school; therefore, it’s important that children start with as many skills as possible.”

The study, “Associations between Counting Ability in Preschool and Mathematic Performance in First Grade among a Sample of Ethnically Diverse, Low-Income Children,” will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Research in Childhood Education.