"Growing Brains" with S.M.A.R.T.

Founder and Co-Director of A Chance To Grow, Bob DeBoer will be speaking about S.M.A.R.T., the centerpiece program of our Minnesota Learning Resource Center that trains teachers how to bring 30-minute, brain-stimulating daily exercises into their classrooms to boost children's learning potential.

S.M.A.R.T. (Stimulating Maturity through Accelerated Readiness Training) is a program educators use in pre-k, kindergarten, first, second and third grade classrooms to integrate fun and challenging physical activities into the school day. The activities are designed to prepare the brain for reading and learning in a way that traditional instruction does not.  Compatible with any existing curriculum, the multi-sensory activities stimulate the brain and increase its capacity to learn. Students who have developed mature readiness skills through S.M.A.R.T. have shown an increased attention span, ability to focus and improved reading scores.

The program is the centerpiece of the Minneapolis-based nonprofit A Chance To Grow’s training institute, the Minnesota Learning Resource Center (MLRC). Since the institute’s establishment through funding from the state legislature in 1999 and the U.S. Department of Education at the federal level, the MLRC has implemented S.M.A.R.T. in over 250 elementary schools nationwide, training 4,700+ educators and exposing over 60,000 children to S.M.A.R.T.

Visit A Chance To Grow’s website at http://actg.org/sweet-reason-discussions for more information on S.M.A.R.T.’s documented results, how to talk with your child’s teacher about establishing S.M.A.R.T. at his or her school, how to get S.M.A.R.T. at your own school (if you’re an educator) and to see S.M.A.R.T. in action!