Balance practice can help improve reading.
Isn’t that fascinating? I believe it is. Let’s take a look at why balance practice can help improve reading, along with ideas to implement balance practice with your preschooler today.
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Do you have a preschooler that insists on balancing?
Do they want to balance on every ledge, beam, and log?
Good News! Practicing balance can greatly improve your preschooler’s reading development.
Balance practice can help improve reading.
For this information, I teamed up with Rosalyn Coleman, OD, a Functional & Developmental Optometrist.
Dr. Roz states why she uses the balance board with her young patients:
“…the vestibular contributes greatly to reading eye movements, eye-hand coordination, balance, motor planning, etc. When I use the balance board in therapy, it is to challenge the patient to use pretty much every sense in synch – the vestibular, visual, auditory (with a metronome), proprioceptive.”
RELATED: Feel your child has an overstimulated or under-stimulated vestibular system?
So, what is the vestibular system?
The vestibular system is the sensory system that contributes to balance and spatial orientation—signals to the vestibular system project to learning or adaptation areas of your brain.
Dr. Roz continues to add, “Most of the patients I see that have reading and learning issues have a huge problem with balancing the functions of all of these senses. Their dominant sense should be a vision to guide and lead the body in everyday tasks, but it usually is not”.
Isn’t this fascinating?
RELATED: Ready for warm weather? Check out these 30+ summer activities for toddlers.
To practice balance, I stay nearby and practice balance with my preschooler.
Where to
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Park
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Home
- Balance relay races
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Gym Bleachers
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Sidewalks
- Balance objects
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Logs
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Swinging on swings
Want to practice balance inside?
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How do you practice balance with your preschooler?
You know, this never really clicked. The other day at yoga they told me how important balance was for kids. I realized this, I am so glad to have found this post and am going to work with my son! Thanks for sharing this info!
Susie, I was thinking the same about Yoga! I knew it was great, but now I can see another benefit to sharing practice with your kids!
Wow! I never realized they were connected. That is so interesting but makes a lot of sense.
This really is fascinating!! I’m going to make more of a focused effort get my preschooler practicing her balancing!!
I love this!! We always did balance activities when I was teaching first grade. 🙂
This is really interesting! I had no idea.
That’s so interesting, had no clue about this!
WOW! I had no idea about this! Very educational and I will be putting my kids balance to the test! 😉
This is fascinating!!! And so cool. I willl share it on my FB page https://www.facebook.com/SanctificationAndSpitup/ later today!
This is so fascinating! I had no idea there was a connection between balancing and reading. And my girls would love those balancing toys!
This IS interesting. I have sort of heard of this before but not with this much detail. It makes a lot of sense though once you learn more about it. Thanks for sharing!
This is such a cool thing to learn. My preschool hasn’t started reading yet but I am going to give her all the opportunities I can to balance on things.
Me too! Now we stop for so many more opportunities to practice.
This is fascinating! I loved balancing on anything and everything I could as a kid, and I was also an avid reader.
That is such a cool connection! Love this.
Thanks for sharing! I already knew how important things like core strength and cross body movements were for academic success but this is some new info for me!
Wow, very interesting read! Thats super good to know.
This is SO interesting! I guess we need to start working on balance! Thanks for sharing!
This is really interesting. I had no idea that the two things were even related.
Today i got to know about vestibular system and spatial orientation. Thanks for the information.