Improving Early Literacy – Yoga Calm Helps!

by | May 17, 2011 | Class Stories, K-12 Education

 

Earlier this spring, we told you about an exciting new study showing the benefits of social-emotional learning programs like Yoga Calm on academic achievement. The very day we posted it, we got an email from Wendy Holley-Boen, a school psychologist here in Oregon who began using Yoga Calm with students late last year and wanted to update us on outcomes.

One of the schools is in LaPine, and we had a kindergarten class come in with very few school-readiness skills and lots of inappropriate behavior. They had taken their DIBELS [Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills] test early in the fall, and across the board they knew zero letters, zero sounds. Since November, the class teacher and I have co-taught Yoga Calm once a week: I do lessons for half an hour each Tuesday, and she incorporates what I’ve taught all day, every day for the rest of the week.

We just finished DIBELS for the winter term, and this kindergarten had THE MOST GROWTH in the entire Bend-LaPine School District!!! We attribute their increased focus, sense of community and growth to our weekly groups.

So…now people are starting to take us seriously 🙂

As well they should!

Congratulations to you, Wendy, and to the class teacher for such an outstanding accomplishment! Here’s hoping that more teachers and staff in your district begin to use Yoga Calm to give these kids such a wonderful academic start.

Have a Yoga Calm success story you’d like to share? Leave it in the comments – or contact us.

Image by woodleywonderworks, via Flickr

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