By TIFFANY RAZZANO
Miller, who has worked for the Rockville Centre School District for 34 years at South Side High School, South Side Middle School and Wilson, first became interested in the connection between the brain and the body at a conference about eight years ago.
Since then, she's read as many books on the topic as she can find, making herself an expert. She then took what she learned and not only applied it to the gym classes, but also started two extracurricular programs based on what she learned.
"I came to realize that kids who had difficulty in gym, have difficulty in the classroom," she said. "I wanted to reach out and help the children with difficulties."
The first program she started was Learning Through Movement six years ago. Similar to a program called Brain Gym, Learning Through Movement, which works with a wide range of children, many with learning disabilities, ADD or ADHD, meets twice a week before school begins and utilizes many different types of balls to help the children reinforce directionality. As the children become more coordinated as the year progresses, they also see a notable difference in the classroom, as the physical activity helps them to read and track words on a page better. "The same eyes that you catch a ball with are the same eyes that you track words with," Miller said. "It's the same brain. If you create new neurological pathways in gym, then there are more for the classroom."
The Leaders Club formed out of Learning Through Movement as Miller realized she needed assistance showing students proper ways to catch and throw. She brought in fifth graders at Wilson to help the younger students in Learning Through Movement and called it the Leaders Club.
At a time when childhood obesity is a growing, national issue, this school year marks the second year of the Mile Club, a running club that meets every Monday at 8 a.m. After every meeting, the students have breakfast in the gym where Miller discusses the importance of nutritional balance with them. "There's so much written about the brain and running," she said. "It sends oxygen to the brain and helps to release 'feel good' hormones."
Parents are raving about the clubs. "[Miller] helped/us to understand that physical education can and does help with learning," said Dorothy Lynn Garone, whose second-grade son participates in both Learning Through Movement and the Mile Club. "We began to do our own research and found that [her] instincts about this issue parroted the major research that was being conducted in major universities. However, anyone can quote research, but [Miller] will not stop there. [Her programs] put the research into practice. The children at Wilson are the beneficiaries of her continual scholarship."
Garone said after a year in the programs she saw significant changes in her son. "We saw positive changes in [him] very quickly," she said. "He experienced success for the first time and understood he was really good at something. He also started making friends."
Miller finds the clubs flourishing, with students who don't necessarily need the extra help attending both clubs simply because they love gym class and physical activity. Currently, Learning Through Movement has about 60 students and the Mile Club has about 40. There are about 30 students in the Leaders Club. She also gets fantastic feedback from teachers when she surveys them at the end of each year, saying that they do in fact notice a difference in the students who attend Learning Through Movement and the Mile Club.
"Both programs are great," said Liz Miller, a gym teacher at Wilson who has worked with Miller for four years and helped out with both programs. "Learning Through Movement is so big. It's amazing. It's helping so many kids with their classroom skills and getting them ready to learn when they go into the classroom setting."
Comments about this story? (516) 569-4000, ext. 221. trazzano@liherald.com.
