--- title: Boys Who Sit Still Have a Harder Time Learning to Read description: The more time first-graders spent sitting and the less time they spent being physically active, the fewer gains they made in reading canonical: https://time.com/4588035/sitting-exercise-reading/ author: Belinda Luscombe article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-02T16:07:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T15:14:36.000Z article:section: Health og:title: Boys Who Sit Still Have a Harder Time Learning to Read og:description: Especially in the early years og:url: https://time.com/4588035/sitting-exercise-reading/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Boys Who Sit Still Have a Harder Time Learning to Read twitter:description: Especially in the early years twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Boys Who Sit Still Have a Harder Time Learning to Read > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ## Video: American Voices: Carland Washington is Promoting Health and Wellness Beyond the Classroom [Watch (HLS stream): American Voices: Carland Washington is Promoting Health and Wellness Beyond the Classroom](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/oqkJzn0t.m3u8) (1:48)  _Published 2016-11-30. In the two years Carland Washington has overseen West Prep Academy middle school in New York City, he’s witnessed a changing view on how his students experience healthier food._  by [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Editor at Large Updated: Dec 13, 2023 3:14 PM UTCPublished: Dec 2, 2016 4:07 PM UTC  by [Belinda Luscombe](https://time.com/author/belinda-luscombe/)  ## Belinda Luscombe Editor at Large Updated: Dec 13, 2023 3:14 PM UTCPublished: Dec 2, 2016 4:07 PM UTC Anybody who has watched little boys for even five seconds knows that they are exhausting. At school, they tear around the playground, bolt through corridors and ricochet off classroom walls. According to a new Finnish study, this is all helping them to be better at reading. The [study](http://www.jsams.org/article/S1440-2440%2816%2930238-9/fulltext), released Nov. 30 in the _Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport,_ found that the more time kids in Grade 1 spent sitting and the less time they spent being physically active, the fewer gains they made in reading in the two following years. In first grade, a lot of sedentary time and no running around also had a negative impact on their ability to do math. Among girls, sitting for a long time without moving much didn’t seem to have any effect on their ability to learn. Researchers at the University of Eastern Finland analyzed studies that measured physical activity and sedentary time of 153 kids aged six to eight. The studies used a combined heart rate and movement sensor, and researchers gave kids standardized tests in math and reading. “We found that lower levels of moderate to vigorous physical activity, higher levels of sedentary time, and particularly their combination, were related to poorer reading skills in boys,” the study says. While the test group was small and Scandinavian ([the Finnish school system](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/the-joyful-illiterate-kindergartners-of-finland/408325/)‘s freaky success is [almost legendary](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/why-are-finlands-schools-successful-49859555/)), the study offers some evidence for what parents have been thinking for a long time: we may not be educating boys the right way. As pressure increases on schools to show evidence of learning, many education systems have tried to provide a more academically rich environment. But sometimes this has come at the cost of physical education, which is often considered an optional extra rather than one of the core skills a student must master. Money and school hours that might have been spent on P.E. are now devoted to libraries, science labs and better tech gadgets. All of these are worthy teaching tools, but they promote a very sedentary style of learning. Add to this the reliance on testing, which, again, has it merits, and you have kids sitting down for longer and longer periods every day. [Most U.S. schools don’t require any P.E. or recess](http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/07/childhood-obesity-most-u-s-schools-dont-require-p-e-class-or-recess/). The connection between [exercise and learning is not new](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/how-exercise-can-boost-the-childs-brain/?%5Fr=0), but the Finnish study provides stronger objective evidence that the increased emphasis on sedentary academic activity among the youngest learners may be fruitless if it comes at the cost of physical activity. Boys whose days were more sedentary when they were in first grade (a crucial year for learning to read) made fewer gains in reading in second and third grade. They also did worse at math for that year. The authors aren’t sure why the difference between boys and girls is so stark. Not as many girls participated in the study, so that may have influenced results. Moreover, it may have less to do with the difference between the male and female brain; for girls, academic achievement may be more influenced by factors such as parental educational support, peer acceptance, teachers’ positive attitude and their own motivation. **Correction:** The original version of this story misstated the journal in which the study was published. It is the _Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport_, not the _Journal of Medicine and Sport_. ## Transcript You're seeing children coming with sodas and bags of chips. Not really caring about education, not really caring about their bodies and wellness. They're tired, they're cranky. They just want to sit around and snack and chat all day. And so we had to work to eliminate those things so that we could focus on the necessary things. [ MUSIC ] I am Carland Washington, Principle of West Prep Academy here in Manhattan, New York. We want to educate the whole child and stimulate their development of eating healthier foods. In New York City, your closest food source is usually the corner Bodega, and those things typically are not very healthy. Wellness in the Schools is a non- profit organization. Organization that was started in 2005. They have cooking labs and outside chefs who come in and do the chef days with the kids. Has anyone ever heard of it being called a super food before? They reached out to my co- principal to bring the program here to our school I thought this would be a good fit for us. Really good. See I told you. One time they brought in a recipe that had rosted red peppers, and one of the students said well I don't like tomatoes, I don't want to eat that. And once he tasted it said, I like that. Attendance has gone up Discipline has changed dramatically. Last year we doubled our English test scores so that makes me feel very proud. America's about shared responsibility and we have to take care of each other and that's what brings me to the work of education. We've worked very hard bringing in different resources like wellness in the schools to support the work that we're doing here at West And we still have a long way to go, but we're definitely a long way from where we used to be. 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