Mindful Storytelling: What the Research Says

During Mindful Storytelling sessions, students experience short mindfulness techniques, chosen specifically for different parts of the day, to assist them in being present, tuning in, releasing anxiety and/or tension and increasing concentration.

These mindful moments are woven into engaging sessions that integrate drama, music and movement with the regular curriculum. Each lesson, gives students the opportunity to contribute in their own unique and creative way, combining their skills and prior knowledge and applying them in a new context.

Mindful Storytelling sessions help students develop problem solving skills, confidence, calm in the classroom, and much more.

 What the research says about…

Mindfulness

Regular Mindfulness practice for children increases attention and social emotional awareness.

• Students are able to stay more focused and pay more attention in class.
• Awareness of their body, thoughts, and emotions increase.
• Classroom management improves because mindfulness improves impulse control and interpersonal skills.
• Executive function increases, a key predictor of academic success.
• Leads to structural changes in the brain that develop and enhance the qualities of: kindness, patience, compassion, attunement to others, increases executive function, better impulse control, longer attention spans.

Excerpt from http://mindfulnessforchildren.org/research/

Drama 

“…Numerous researchers have emphasized the tremendous effect drama and theatre can have on children’s cognitive and affective development ….”(Furman, 2000)

 “Drama can be an invaluable teaching method, since it supports every aspect of literacy development. From developing their decoding knowledge, fluency, vocabulary, syntactic knowledge, discourse knowledge, and metacognitive knowledge to comprehension of extended texts, drama and theatre in many ways educate children as a whole, and they offer children a more free and flexible space in which to grow and to learn.”

Excerpt from http://www.ericdigests.org/2004-1/drama.htm

Movement and Dance

Creative movement gives children opportunities to move in new ways and helps them learn that there can be more than one solution to a question, a problem, or a task.

Research shows that movement and exercise can spark the growth of new brain cells and facilitate learning (Ratey 2008).

Ratey, J.J. 2008. SPARK: The revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain. New York: Little, Brown.

Follow this link to learn about Mindful Storytelling workshops offered.