Brain Breaks Impacting Student Achievement

Abstract

Children all across the United States have strict instructional schedules throughout the school day and many aspects, such as stress factors, home life, friends, and family impact their success in school. This study was done to determine the impact brain breaks have on student achievement. In this experimental design, 10 children in this first-grade class were given 10 minutes of brain breaks prior to completing independent work, daily. Seven children were not given brain breaks prior to the independent work time. Data was collected through spelling tests on the sound of the week, each week for 6 weeks. The findings of this study show that brain breaks had a positive impact on the achievements of the students who were exposed to them, as opposed to those who were not exposed to brain breaks.