If you’re looking for ways to support your child’s learning, Dr. Rick Graebe, a pediatric specialist at the Children’s Vision and Learning Center in Versailles, Kentucky, offers a simple but powerful suggestion: “Send them outside to play.”
It might sound surprising, but playtime—particularly unstructured outdoor play—is not just a fun activity. It’s essential for children’s development, and recent research backs this up. Studies show that the decline in free playtime over the past few decades has negatively affected children’s creativity, social skills, and even their emotional well-being.
Why Play Matters for Learning
Play is more than just fun. It plays a critical role in children’s visual and spatial development, which directly impacts their ability to read and learn. According to Dr. Graebe, children work on essential visual-spatial skills when they engage in outdoor activities. These skills are necessary for reading because they involve the brain’s ability to coordinate what the eyes see.
Children with poor visual-spatial skills may struggle with tasks like following a line of text or comprehending what they’re reading. They may also have difficulty with hand-eye coordination, leading to clumsiness in everyday activities.
Building Visualization Skills Through Play
One key aspect of reading is visualization—the ability to create mental images based on the words on a page. For some children, this skill comes naturally, but for others, it needs to be developed. If a child can’t picture what they are reading, the process becomes just a mechanical exercise of decoding words.
Dr. Graebe explains, “When a child struggles to visualize while reading, it’s like reading in a foreign language. The words don’t come alive.”
At the Children’s Vision and Learning Center, Dr. Graebe and his team help children strengthen their visualization skills through specialized therapy. The therapy involves activities where children transform pictures into words and words back into pictures, helping them improve their reading comprehension.
The Value of Unstructured Play
While structured activities like sports or school programs have their place, unstructured outdoor play offers unique benefits. When children play outside without specific instructions or goals, they naturally develop creative problem-solving skills, improve their motor coordination, and enhance their ability to navigate the world visually.
Dr. Graebe emphasizes the importance of balancing structured and unstructured activities: “The more time children spend in self-directed outdoor play, the more they can build the visual and spatial skills necessary for academic success.”
Encouraging Play for Better Learning
In a world where children’s schedules are often packed with organized activities, it’s essential to remember the value of letting them just play. Not only does outdoor play promote physical health, but it also nurtures the visual and cognitive skills that are foundational for reading and learning.
If you’re concerned about your child’s reading abilities or visual skills, consider scheduling a comprehensive eye exam. At the Children’s Vision and Learning Center, located in Versailles, Kentucky, and serving the greater Lexington area and Southern Kentucky from Somerset, Dr. Rick Graebe FCOVD and his team offer expert, individualized vision therapy programs to help children thrive.
Call today at 859-879-0089 to schedule an appointment and give your child the tools they need to succeed.
Credit:
This blog is based on information from Dr. Rick Graebe as compiled and written by John Lynch.