Here’s how it works: In 30-minute, once-a-week action-packed sessions that employ intensity, repetition and novelty, specially trained coaches engage kids one-on-one or in small groups with amped-up flash cards and a physical regimen akin to gymnastics, including ball skills and fine motor development. Equal time is given to the cards and exercises – a purposeful division, Hannan says, citing research that recommends participating in physical activity before learning or in combination with learning to enhance retention and memory. Parents also participate, helping “coach” their child.
All of the card sets captivate the visual, auditory and motor senses simultaneously – a trifecta that has also been shown to aid learning. The cards target different skills such as attentiveness or pre-math ability by presenting the various ways amounts can be seen increasing and decreasing (with familiar images such as dogs and cats), all presented with catchy phrases spoken at varying volumes such as “BIG, little.”
Galanter says PlayWisely is a sensible approach compared to many others he’s encountered for addressing education within the appropriate developmental timelines for ages 0–5. Galanter notes that brain organization, or neural connectivity, starts at less than one week old and launches the cognitive machinery that shapes all future learning. Research has long shown that early experiences and interaction with the environment are central to a child’s brain development and continuously alter the structure of the brain – for better or worse.
Can a combination of flash cards and gravity-based physical activity be key to developing babies' and young kids’ brains? Former gymnast (and neuroscience enthusiast) Patty Hannan thinks so.
The deceptively simple, once-a-week 30-minute routine, offered in select schools and in private sessions in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is designed to jump-start a child’s natural learning and movement capability. We’re not talking about traditional ABCs and 123s but a strategic triggering of the neural circuitry and sensory systems that will enable the fundamentals to fall into place efficiently later on.
The PlayWisely concept starts with something simple: flash cards, albeit on steroids. “Without too much heavy science explanation, it’s basically gymnastics on a card,”
Put simply, her method seeks to fire up kids’ brains to give them an edge in tackling milestones faster (such as speaking and potty training), as well as building necessary competencies such as focus at an earlier age.
It’s hard to believe anything can be effective when done only 30 minutes a week, but Motes says the key is the intensity of the program. PlayWisely can accomplish so much in these brief sessions because of the pace and focus of the interactions,
“We are laying the essential foundational wiring, so one day when your child finds her purpose, passion or talent, she can achieve her goals,
“Many of the activities in the PlayWisely sequences are similar to common play activities that actively involved parents engage in with their children, such as encouraging a child to point to a picture of a ‘cat’ in a book that the parent is reading to the child,” Motes says. “However, even involved parents typically engage in such activities unsystematically.”