Ep 45: Moving Toward Literacy: The Power of Physical Development with Stacy Benge

Stacy Benge is an ECCN favorite.  She is a frequent presenter at our events and we enjoy having her on the podcast from time to time.  She's the author of "The Whole Child Alphabet: How Children Actually Develop Literacy" – linked in the show notes.  She is passionate about whole-child development and shares her knowledge readily with practical, engaging, and fun content.  Stacy has a master of science degree in Human Development, over a decade of experience in the classroom, and another twenty years of consulting, training, and research in early childhood spaces.   Our conversation today focuses on physical development as a foundation for literacy development! Stacy is going to share with us just how important it is to allow children to engage in free movement and play to develop the necessary physical skills for literacy. We will touch on topics such as the long-term consequences of restricting physical movement in early childhood and the need for early childhood educators to understand and communicate the value of physical development to parents and administrators. Through the conversation today, we will learn that trusting children's intuitive need for movement is key to supporting their overall development. Stacy's focus on whole child development just makes sense when you think about how God designed little bodies to grow. In our quest to help children reach their full potential, we sometimes skip to the things that we can control, right?  Stacy always reminds me that the simple things matter – sometimes they matter the most! Crawling, climbing, spinning, running, leaning, reaching, grasping…all of these simple things that happen when children are playing are actually the foundation of literacy skills. When we curate environments that allow and encourage movement in children, we're actually helping them become better readers and writers in the future.   Additional Resources:  The Whole Child Alphabet  Stacy's website, Instagram, and Facebook  Child-Centered Learning: A Discussion of Emergent Curriculum (a course on our website!) As always, we would love to connect with you on Instagram and on Facebook