Physical Literacy Benefits Children, Parents, ECE's

Photo by Vitolda Klein

An Active for Life article and video look at how physical literacy in childcare benefits children, parents and ECEs.

Active for Life undertook “a controlled proof of concept study that addressed the ‘real-life’ challenges of getting kids moving in child care centres”, led by Dr Dawn Clarke, Professor Emerita of Mount Royal University’s Centre for Child Well-Being.

663 children in 39 centres across BC and Alberta participated in the Physical Literacy Proof of Concept Study in Child Care Settings. The two-year-long study, involving a range of physical literacy activities provided by Active for Life, that were cost-free, easy-to-implement indoor and outdoor additions to the centres’ regular programs, resulted in 94% of the children being more active. 88% of educators reported improvements in the children’s social development, focus and participation, and 100% of educators reported they would continue to deliver physical literacy programming. 23 centres were provided with the activities and lesson plans to use with the children in their care. Results were measured against a control group of 16 centres that were given no special intervention.

The short (5 minute) videointerviews Dr Clarke, along with educators and parents involved in the study.

Benefits demonstrated through the study were found in all areas of child development (cognitive, social, emotional and physical), including improvements in executive function, language and communication skills, and emotional self-regulation. An added bonus was that “early childhood educators also reported that including more physically active play, every day, made their work easier, more effective - and more fun!”

Specific benefits noted included:

  • Study group infants showed a strong increase in locomotor skills.

  • Study group toddlers showed improvement in manipulative skills and across all fundamental motor skills (FMS).

  • Study group preschoolers showed improvement in manipulative skills.

  • Across all ages, study group children showed the strongest improvement in manipulative skills and a total overall improvement in all FMS.

Additional benefits included:

  • Improvements in concentration, problem-solving and self-calming.

  • Increased interaction time between educators and children, and improvements in happiness and calmness for educators.

  • Increased bonding amongst children, staff and families.

  • The activities were easy and inexpensive to incorporate, requiring little prep time, space or special equipment.

The free intervention tools provided by the Early Years Physical Literacy Research Team included:

  • APPLE Model – the overall framework for providing active play and physical literacy everyday.

  • APPLE Seeds – a 12-week evidence-based program designed to support educators to include physical literacy in their daily programming.

  • Hop Skip and Jump – an evidence-based resource manual for parents, caregivers, and professionals.

These materials, tested extensively by educators over several years, are available for free download, along with a series of infographics summarizing the key findings of the study. The infographics are available at:

Healthy Lifestyles, Research + InnovationsJessica Campbell