Research

Social Emotional Learning and Teaching Chakras to Children as Emotional Anatomy

Last weekend I was in Washington, DC speaking at the National Kids Yoga Conference about the importance of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and how teachers can use meaningful stories in their kids yoga classes to teach emotional skills.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has established itself as an important paradigm in all educational fields and I’m happy to report that it is an important part of Young Yoga Masters Kids Yoga Teacher Training.

We integrate the ideas of SEL into all Certificates but it’s a core part of the Chakras for Children module.

Aruna Kathy Humphrys teaching Social Emotional Learning Workshop at National Kids Yoga Conference

What is Social Emotional Learning?

For decades teachers and schools focused on teaching knowledge and information gathering skills. The names of class topics refer to well-known areas of human knowledge: math, science, history, geography and so on. They thought that you would learn emotional and social skills a by-product of learning these other topics.

By struggling to understand difficult concepts and getting together in groups to do projects students were thought to have learnt emotional and social skills. Social and emotional learning was never considered a topic unto itself.

In recent years a new paradigm of teaching has put emotional and social skills at the forefront of learning instead of leaving it as a by-product of academic skills. This new paradigm is called Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and it has been making headway in school curricula and in scientific research.

Research Reveals Social Emotional Learning Works!

Social Emotional Learning is the process by which children (and adults) acquire the skills to manage emotions, create positive relationships and achieve desirable goals.

A review of 82 school-based, universal social and emotional learning (SEL) programs involving 97,406 kindergarten to high school students found SEL training had long lasting, valuable results:

Students who were enrolled in school based SEL programs experienced positive benefits for almost 4 years after going through a SEL program
Positive attitudes, prosocial behavior, and academic performance improved
SEL training protected against the development of subsequent problems (i.e., conduct problems, emotional distress, and drug use)
Positive effects were found with students from different racial groups, different socioeconomic statuses, and different geographic areas around the world.
SEL programs improved children’s academic performance and behavior
One of the foundational elements of social emotional learning is self-awareness.

Using Chakras to Teach Social Emotional Learning

Children see skeletons of the body to learn about their bones. They see the organs in their body and learn about their digestive system. But where is the map for children to learn about their emotions? The study of the Chakras can provide this map.

Teaching the Chakras to children is a fun, playful endeavour to explore colours, feelings, and emotions. Chakras are a way to look at your emotional anatomy. The Chakras are a wonderful way for kids to learn about their emotions in their body and to empower them to self-regulate and cope with stress.

This is why SEL can be enhanced by learning about the Chakras. Chakras emphasize energetic anatomy, beyond parts of the body, towards understanding how we feel and the emotions related to the energetic anatomy of each chakra.

Using the Chakras to examine our social emotional identities yields a deep understanding of the layers of our emotions that co-exist and impact our relationships with ourselves and others.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Social Emotional Learning and also learning lots of great tools, techniques and games for teaching Family Yoga and Kids Yoga classes, consider signing up for the 95 Hour Kids Yoga Teacher Certification. You can find out more about the Chakras for Children 4 Hour Module here or the whole Certification here.

4 Keys to Teaching Literacy and Language with the Yoga Alphabet

When I introduce the Frog Yoga Alphabet resources to participants Yoga Literacy Certificate of the kids yoga teacher training, I emphasize that the alphabet letters make words, words make sentences and sentences make stories. It’s good thing to remember because it reveals the importance of letter learning but also reminds us that the yoga alphabet can be used in so many more ways than just learning letters.

Since the Yoga Literacy Certificate is coming up this weekend, I decided to look into the latest research around teaching literacy. With that in mind here are some interesting findings which speak to the idea that letters make words and words make stories. Here are 4 keys to teaching literacy to young learners:

1. A Letter a Day is Better than a Letter a Week

When introducing the alphabet, rather than presenting a letter a week, Ray Reutzel in his paper Early Literacy Research: Findings Primary‐Grade Teachers Will Want to Know points out it is more effective to introduce a letter every day and then cycle through the alphabet after that. When cycling back, give more attention to more difficult letters:

…this protocol calls for teachers to introduce a new letter or set of letters each day in multiple cycles of repeated practice. Over time, as the easier letters are mastered, teachers adjust the instruction through pacing and frequency of exposure. All letters are taught explicitly at least once. However, those letters that are harder for children to learn receive more attention and practice.

2. Six Ways Kids Learn Letters More Easily and Quickly

In the same paper above, Reutzel also identified six learning orders in which children learn the alphabet letters and sounds:

Own-name effect – Young children most easily and quickly learn the letters found in their given or first names.
Alphabetic-order effect– Letters at the beginning or end of the alphabet are learned more quickly and easily than those letters ordered in the middle of the alphabet
Letter-frequency effect – The more frequently exposed letters are in printed materials, the more quickly and easily they are learned
Letter-name pronunciation effect – Occurs when a letter’s sound is heard as the letter’s name is pronounced.
Consonant phoneme acquisition order effect – That young children learn consonant letters’ names and sounds easier when they are mastered earlier in children’s oral language development
Distinctive visual features letter-writing effect – The letters of the alphabet are recognized through detection of a smaller set of distinctive visual features. Teaching students to fluently produce this smaller set of distinctive visual features before teaching them how to write all of the alphabet letters has been found to lead to quicker mastery of letter transcription.

3. Self Regulation Helps Literacy

We know that one of the aims of yoga and meditation is improving self-regulation. A recent study from Michigan State University found that literacy learning improves when combined with activities that improve self regulation. Lead researcher Lori Skibbe says :

Parents need to be aware of how their children can regulate their own behavior based on what’s going on around them. Parents can structure their home environment and routines in ways that support children,” Skibbe said. A full night of sleep, playing games with children and having time without distractions in the background are things you might not think help language and literacy development, but they do.”

4. Kindergarten Language Skills Are Good Predictors of Future Proficiency in Other Subjects

We know that teaching literacy is the foundation of building language skills in children but research from University of Washington found that a child’s language skills in kindergarten predict his or her performance in other areas, including math, reading and social and emotional learning later into their education. Amy Pace, an assistant professor in the UW Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences and member of the team that conducting the study found:

Researchers found that of the skills and milestones evaluated – social/emotional, attention, health, reading, math and language – only language skills, when a child entered school, predicted his or her performance both within that subject area and most others (math, reading and social skills) from first through fifth grade. Reading ability in kindergarten predicted reading, math and language skills later on; and math proficiency correlated with math and reading performance over time.

Yoga Literacy Certificate

If you’re interested in yoga tools that help teach literacy and language to kids, the Yoga Literacy Certificate is for you. It includes a lot more than just teaching kids yoga how to use the letters of the alphabet. It also includes partner poses, games and activities for early readers to teens and we take a look at ways of doing yoga with kids while having fun and staying safe. Plus, participants of the kids yoga training learn effective relaxation techniques that help calm kids.

Research on Why Kids Yoga Improves School Performance

There was a time when school recess was considered a way for kids to burn off energy so they would sit still for book learning. Now a days, thanks to scientific research, we know exercise is indeed good for the body but it is also great for the brain.

Research shows physical activity improves memory in the elderly and encourages neuronal growth in the young.

How can we harness this type of research to convince schools, daycare centers, and parents to get enthusiastic about kids yoga? Wouldn’t it be great to have scientifically supported evidence to promote yoga for kids?

Well good news, a group of scientific researchers gathered to investigate the effects of exercise on kids’ brains and shared with the world their consensus on the benefits of exercise!

In the year 2016 this happened at the aptly named Copenhagen Consensus Conference. Researchers from eight different countries came together to issue a joint statement on the effect of exercise on kids’ health.

Kids are ready to go in the Kids Yoga Teacher Training — Taking exercise breaks, like running games in the gym, are good for kids academically.

Consensus on the Benefits of Exercise for Children from Researchers

They agreed on the easily guessable, common sense stuff, that exercise improves kids’ bones, muscles and hearts. They also agreed that the fitness levels of these in kids is a good predictor of whether or not the they will go on to develop heart disease, diabetes or other chronic diseases later in life.

8 Reasons why Exercise, Like Kids Yoga, Improves School Performance

The Copenhagen Consensus didn’t stop at the physical benefits of exercise; they reported on the mental and emotional effects of exercise. They agreed that:

Physical activity improves brain structure, brain function and cognition.
Physical activity before, during and after school improves performance in other school work.
Learning to master physical movements improves performance in school work
Regular physical activity can improve kids’ self-esteem and relationships with peers and adults
Focused physical activity creates a good motivational environment for kids
Exercise programs promote life skills and core values in kids
Two additional points that the Copenhagen Consensus group agreed on are worth highlighting. They agreed that a single session of physical activity helps kid’s brains. That means a single game of soccer, a single recess of tag, a single yoga class can result in measurable benefits to kids mental activity.
The next important point the group agreed on was that spending time being physically active doesn’t sacrifice performance in school work. On the contrary, spending time on physical activity helps overall school performance.

In other words, schools (and parents) have absolutely no good reason to declare their kids don’t have time for an exercise program because they are focusing on school work. Exercise increases performance in school work.

kids yoga teacher training, yoga for children — Even an exercise break in the classroom is good for kids brains.

Exercise to Improve Scholastic Performance

As yoga teachers we can stress the importance of exercise by asking: do you want kids to study for the sake of studying, or do you want kids to improve their scholastic performance?

Because if the aim is to create better students, then kids should spend some time with a ball instead of a pen and some time doing downward dog instead of sitting behind a desk.

You can read the full statement by The Copenhagen Consensus Conference 2016 here.

For ideas to bring kids yoga into schools, check out these two resources: