Guest post by Rob Jacobsen, Chicago Swim School, Arlington Heights, IL
Talk to any parent that has had their child in swimming lessons at a very early age, and you’ll likely find a passionate parent who can quickly list examples of mental, physical, emotional, developmental, and social benefits that resulted in having teaching their child to swim at a very early age.
Something we have always known at Chicago Swim School is that early childhood swimming lessons exceed just ‘learning how to swim’. Researchers have documented that the effect of child-paced infant/toddler swimming lessons has the potential to increase intelligence, concentration, alertness and perceptual abilities for children who begin swimming lessons prior to 12 months.
Researchers from the Griffith Institute for Educational Research surveyed parents of 7000 under-fives from Australia, New Zealand and the US over three years. A further 180 children aged 3, 4 and 5 years have been involved in intensive testing, making it the world’s most comprehensive study into early-years swimming.
The study also points out that children who participate in early-years swimming achieve a wide range of skills earlier than the normal population. Many of these skills are those that help young children into the transition into formal learning contexts such as pre-school or elementary school.
As well as achieving physical milestones faster, children also scored significantly better in visual-motor skills such as cutting paper, coloring and drawing lines and shapes, and many mathematically-related tasks. Their oral expression was also better in the general areas of literacy and numeracy.
At Chicago Swim School, we also strongly believe that there isn’t another activity where you can bond with your baby face to face, skin to skin and experience a pivitol learning moment together. Those baby moments are fleeting; We are always so honored that we get to be in the forefront of a child’s educational milestone when they begin lessons with us at an early age.
Find out more at www.chicagoswimschool.com
