Studies in adults have proved that overnight sleep can help them assimilate new information better. Sleep helps consolidate new memories and makes them easier to access on a later date. However there was no evidence to support the fact that a daytime nap will help a student learn better till Psychologist Rebecca Spencer of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, conducted her study. Rebecca used her own children, daughters then aged 3 and 5, to help answer the question, “How well did a child learn when she napped, and what happened when she didn’t?”
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What the Study Entailed
The study was conducted by Rachel Spencer, with additional help from her graduate student Laura Kurdziel, and undergraduate Kasey Duclos of Commonwealth Honors College at the University of Massachusetts. Over the period of her study over 40 children were studied in the age group of 3 to 6 years. In the study the child played the Memory Game using picture cards to check where matching cards were located. After two hours it was nap time and the child was encouraged to sleep using “nap promotion” techniques like resting a hand on the child’s back, rubbing their feet, or simply sitting next to them to make sure that they slept. The average nap time that the children slept was about 15 minutes. Once they woke up they were allowed to play Memory again.
The Results of the Study
The goal of the study was to see how well a child compared with his or her own performance with or without a nap. On some days the child was allowed to play in the morning, have a nap and then play again. On other days the same child was allowed to play in the morning, not have a nap and then play after sometime again. What the researchers found was that the daytime nap of 15 minutes could make a distinguishable difference in the performance of the child. Without a nap the child’s performance was likely to drop by 10% the second time round. Those who had five naps a week performed much better than those who did not.
So the next time your homeschool student says that she wants to take a nap, you may just want to let her have one!
Article Inspiration: About Homeschooling
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