March 2009     Findings from a University of Illinois study suggest there are academic benefits to physical education classes, recess periods and after-school exercise programs.

The research, led by Charles Hillman, a professor of kinesiology and community health and the director of the Neurocognitive Kinesiology Laboratory at Illinois, suggests that physical activity may increase students' cognitive control – or ability to pay attention – and also result in better performance on academic achievement tests.

"The goal of the study was to see if a single acute bout of moderate exercise – walking – was beneficial for cognitive function in a period of time afterward," Hillman said. "This question has been asked before by our lab and others, in young adults and older adults, but it's never been asked in children. That's why it's an important question."

For each of three testing criteria, researchers noted a positive outcome linking physical activity, attention and academic achievement.

In an effort to see how performance on such tests relates to actual classroom learning, researchers next administered an academic achievement test. The test measured performance in three areas: reading, spelling and math.

The researchers noted better test results following exercise.

"And when we assessed it, the effect was largest in reading comprehension," Hillman said. In fact, he said, "If you go by the guidelines set forth by the Wide Range Achievement Test, the increase in reading comprehension following exercise equated to approximately a full grade level.

"Thus, the exercise effect on achievement is not statistically significant, but a meaningful difference."

Hillman said he's not sure why the students' performance on the spelling and math portions of the test didn't show as much of an improvement as did reading comprehension, but suspects it may be related to design of the experiment. Students were tested on reading comprehension first, leading him to speculate that too much time may have elapsed between the physical activity and the testing period for those subjects.

"Future attempts will definitely look at the timing," he said. Subsequent testing also will introduce other forms of physical-activity testing.

"Treadmills are great," Hillman said. "But kids don't walk on treadmills, so it's not an externally valid form of exercise for most children. We currently have an ongoing project that is looking at treadmill walking at the same intensity relative to a Wii Fit game – which is a way in which kids really do exercise."

Among Castelli's other recommendations for school personnel interested in integrating physical activity into the curriculum:

• scheduling outdoor recess as a part of each school day;
• offering formal physical education 150 minutes per week at the elementary level, 225 minutes at the secondary level;
• encouraging classroom teachers to integrate physical activity into learning.

An example of how physical movement could be introduced into an actual lesson would be "when reading poetry (about nature or the change of seasons), students could act like falling leaves," she said.

From a media release by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, 31 March 2009.

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