San Diego's North County Times photographer Jamie Scott Lytle and staff writer, Cyndie Claypool de Neve reported on the Brain Highways program.

These articles appeared in the Sunday edition of the North County Times on May 4, 2003.

Play-Doh. Silly Putty. Tennis balls.

The essentials in every classroom.

Well, at least at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas.

Third-graders hunt for compound words in the newspaper. They cover the word with Silly Putty. Press down hard. Then transfer the imprint to a blank piece of paper. Press again.

Other children wrap Play-Doh around their pencils to help prevent them from writing with a death grip. One boy laughs as he presses too hard and dents the Play-Doh.

Down the hall, kindergartners practice counting while strengthening the fine-motor skills needed to hold a pencil correctly. Using a tennis ball with a slit for a mouth, and two drawn-on eyes, the students count out six cents in coins, then feed to the "monster" by squeezing the tennis ball six times.

Another group walks an Adventure Trail outdoors, trying to avoid cut-out snakes, cactuses and T. Rexes, and stopping to read the words describing each site. The kindergartners rattle off "that," "they," "this," as easily as second-graders.

These are more than just fun ways to engage students. They are part of the Brain Highways program, created by Nancy Sokol Green of Encinitas, which provides specific movement and sensory experiences to build and strengthen essential nerve paths.

"It's about using meaningful movement that enhances learning that helps make connections in the brain," explained Elizabeth O'Toole, principal at Paloma Elementary School in San Marcos, which is also using the program.

Building highways

"The main point is to get meaningful movement in the kids' classrooms," said Green, sitting in the program's Brain Lab at Paul Ecke. The room is filled with balance beams, rocking balance boards, a small trampoline, a large ball and rows of clear plastic containers filled with everyday household items and explanations of educational games for the children to play.

"When they're moving, they can learn anything," she said, stopping to give a student a big smile and her usual high-five.

Green was a teacher for five years in southeast San Jose before becoming an educational consultant 20 years ago. During her career, she noticed more children struggling academically, as well as a rise in learning disabilities and attention-deficit disorders.

She pored over the plethora of recent brain research that has emerged, thanks to modern brain-imaging technology. Much of the research she cites on her Web site focuses on the relationship between a child's early experiences and the establishment of a strong foundation for later learning. Among the research she cites are:

-- A study that showed that children who do not crawl adequately are more likely to be hyperactive and suffer learning disabilities, since they may not have mastered eye-hand coordination (Walsh, 1980).

-- A study that confirms there is a pathway from the cerebellum (known for its role in posture, coordination, balance and movement) to parts of the brain involved in memory, attention, and spatial perception (Strick, 1995).

-- A study that found that movement and physical activity help to integrate both brain hemispheres. If this integration hasn't occurred by age 7, a child will have learning difficulties and not perform to full potential (Taylor, 1997).

Movement is the key

Green said she realized that today's children may have missed some important neurological foundations that used to be created naturally through such multisensory activities as making mud pies, rolling down grassy hills, and playing hopscotch.

Instead, she said, modern children more often are sitting in front of a computer, television set or video game. This can result in difficulty with visual, auditory, fine-motor or gross-motor skills.

But, Green said, there is hope. Recent research shows that the brain can re-wire itself, and Green devised the Brain Highway program to be a fun way to go back and create those neurological "paths" that might have been missed in a child's early years.

"Many of today's kids did not finish development of their lower parts of the brain," she explained. "As a result, such kids are trying to learn, pay attention, and demonstrate self-control with disorganized brains. In such cases, there is a constant tug-of-war between the cortex ---- the thinking part of the brain ---- and the lower, survival parts of the brain.

"Brain Highways provides simple ways to finish that development and thus reorganize the brain so it works efficiently. Until the brain becomes well-organized, many kids simply need to move in order to learn with ease and success."

From the principal's desk

Green started creating Brain Highways in 1999, using Paul Ecke School for her pilot site. Now five other elementary schools are using it: Capri, Ocean Knoll and Mission Estancia in Encinitas; Paloma in San Marcos; and North Broadway in Escondido.

For using the program, Paloma received the 2003 "Best Practice" award from the San Diego Business Roundtable of Education, a group of 123 local businesses that honors exemplary and innovative school programs.

Paloma Principal O'Toole said she's "absolutely thrilled" with how her kindergarten teachers are using Brain Highways.

"We feel so strongly about this program. We've seen such neat results that my plan for next year is to train the first-grade teachers."

O'Toole and Green recalled one kindergartner who did not know any letters or their sounds, despite constant lessons during the first three months of school.

However, as soon as the teachers began using Brain Highways techniques, the child was able to identify letters and letter sounds. Six months later, the student not only knows every letter and sound, but is able to spell words correctly on spelling tests, said Green.

The greatest benefit is that the training has changed the way the teachers see the students, O'Toole added.

"So when a kid is moving a lot, rocking back and forth, instead of thinking 'Why can't Johnny sit still?' they think, 'He needs to move. He's trying to wake up his (brain's) vestibular system.' They have started looking at the students in a different light. They adjust, so the kids are getting enough movement to keep their brains really focusing."

Skeptical at first

Chriss Allen of Encinitas, a clinical psychologist who specializes in child development, was skeptical of Brain Highways.

"I thought it was another fad," said Allen. "My husband is also a psychologist, and he was skeptical too."

But their son, Gabe, who was struggling to keep up with his third-grade class at Paul Ecke, wanted to participate in the school's Brain Lab, where some students come two to three times a week.

"When Gabe was interested in it, I knew I had to follow through," said Allen.

For years, Allen, who has a certificate in special education, had tried everything she knew to help her son develop his fine- and gross-motor skills.

"But nothing really worked," she said. "It was like slogging through molasses. He's a really smart kid, but it was so hard for him."

So they were surprised when "it began to work well," she said, "and I was fascinated with why it was working."

Allen said she discovered Green had based her work on well-respected brain research. "It's like getting an ophthalmologist, physical therapist and occupational therapist" ---- without the cost, since the program is offered to mainstream students in public schools. "Nancy really put together a program that's very unique because it combines all these areas."

In the classroom

Gabe happily talked about his school's Brain Highways program. Previously, he said, he had struggled to write a couple of sentences. But after participating in Brain Highways activities, he's been writing more easily. He proudly showed off a page and a half of legible writing. Before, said Gabe, "Every time I wrote, it made me so tired. Now I like writing."

His teacher, Julie Hinze, began adding Brain Highways techniques three years ago. Hinze, a teacher for 25 years, said she started slowly. "Then I made the transition to include the techniques into all the curriculum."

She said hers is a far different classroom from the days when she had kids sitting in straight rows, concentrating on desk work, instead of doing activities that incorporate movement during the more than six hours children spend at school.

Besides seeing the educational benefits of Brain Highways, Hinze has noticed the students are more engaged. Compared with her previous classes, she said, "The kids like this much better."

Nancy Sokol Green recently released "Adventure Trails," an e-book on a computer disk, to make it easy for parents and educators to begin the Brain Highways program at home or school. The e-book presents fun, simple movements and activities that Green says develop brain pathways, and includes video clips, articles explaining the correlation between activities and paying attention and learning, and research references. Log on to www.brainhighways.com.

Contact staff writer Cyndie Claypool de Neve at (760) 740-3511 or cyndie.deneve@cox.net.

Adrian Galvan, 8, ran around, spinning, swinging, rolling and laughing.

The Escondido boy considers it play time. Mom considers it homework.

It's not that Adrian didn't spend his first two years of elementary school trying to do traditional homework. But it proved to be more frustrating than productive.

His mom, Alma Galvan, worked with him about two hours daily to help him finish the homework that some students complete in a half-hour. Plus, Adrian's speech was often hard to understand, and he had difficulty paying attention.

The Galvans tried everything from medication to seeing expensive professionals, including an occupational therapist and an osteopath. At school, Adrian worked with a speech therapist and a reading specialist.

"The teachers were doing all they could," said Alma, "but deep in my gut I knew there was something else I could be doing."

Then a friend told her about Nancy Sokol Green, an Encinitas educational consultant who had created a program called Brain Highways to stimulate all aspects of the brain through meaningful movement and sensory activities.

Though Green usually concentrates on developing programs and training teachers and volunteers to work with students, she agreed to meet with Adrian and his mother in June 2001.

Within days of using fun Dizzy Disks and balance boards and other interactive sensory and movement activities to "wake up" the vestibular (inner ear) system in the brain, which affects balance, Galvan noticed that Adrian was starting to pay attention better.

"Definitely, he was more noticeably awake," said Galvan of her son, who had been assessed as having learning disabilities and severe-language delay. "Within a week, he was asking us more questions," just like other 8-year-olds, she said.

Her husband, Lalo, quit his job and started a home-based construction company so he could help his sons with their education. Lalo started making Brain Highways equipment for Adrian and his brother, Manny, 11.

Lalo built a beautiful cherrywood podium where Adrian balances on a rocking board while doing worksheets. That helps him concentrate and keeps him from fidgeting, which he does when he has to sit, said Alma Galvan.

Adrian likes to lie on the hammock out back and throw bean bags through the holes on a wooden target his dad created. Sometimes Galvan tapes his spelling words over the holes, and Adrian spells each word as he tosses the bean bag at it.

All these games work on different brain systems to help children focus better and organize the brain better so information can be retained, Galvan explained.

Janis Lunde, Adrian's first-grade teacher last year at North Broadway Elementary in Escondido, said that before he started Brain Highways, "He had a very hard time holding a pencil. You couldn't read his handwriting, and sitting in a chair was really hard for him."

But after an intensive Brain Highways introduction, "he improved drastically," said Lunde, a 16-year veteran. She was so impressed that she has added Brain Highways activities to her classroom.

Galvan wanted the program made available to other students, too. So she and Adrian went to local businesses and raised $3,000 to help pay for Green to train educators at the school. Thanks to funds from the North Broadway Parent-Teacher Association, Green will return this month for another training session, this time including potential parent volunteers.

Galvan smiled proudly as she showed a photo of Adrian dressed in nice slacks and a tie, taken the day he talked to businesses. He told them, "I'm in a Brain Highways program. It taught me how to be a champion, and I want my classmates to be champions, too. Will you help me?"

Galvan remembered, "He had a diagram of a brain and of a child reading. He'd say, 'When you learn to read, you use one highway. But what if something happens to that highway? You can't read very well or not at all. Then you need another highway to learn to read.' "

The Galvans are happy to be moving along that new highway.