Bike-riding program expansion in Fort Worth ISD helps kindergartners reach milestone
A program that teaches kindergartners how to ride a bike during PE class has expanded to a second elementary school in the Fort Worth Independent School District, with more than 100 local students provided with the opportunity to reach the notable milestone.
About 44 students at Charles Nash Elementary School will receive bike-riding lessons this school year, and for at least the next seven years for future kindergartners, through a district partnership with All Kids Bike and the HDR Foundation.
The program provides the school near downtown Fort Worth with 24 Strider balance-to-pedal bikes, helmets and an instructor bike, in addition to training for teachers and a curriculum with lesson plans. The curriculum consists of eight lessons that start with mastering balance before moving on to pedaling, but schools have the freedom to adjust the curriculum to their students’ needs, according to All Kids Bike Public Relations Manager Nichole Buchholz.
The national program spans across all 50 U.S. states and serves more than 100,000 students a year. It was first brought to Fort Worth ISD in the spring at S.S. Dillow Elementary and includes 60 kindergartners this year.
“It’s a lifetime skill, something they can carry with them forever. It’s their first opportunity at freedom. It’s their first vehicle,” Buchholz said. “If you don’t have the opportunity to learn when you’re young, the older we get, the more scared we get to try new things. Introducing it younger I really think gives them a better success rate and builds their confidence from a young age.”
Charles Nash Elementary is one of 37 schools nationwide to be part of the program through a $324,000 sponsorship by the HDR Foundation, an employee-owned professional services firm that specializes in architecture, engineering, environmental and construction services. The selected schools are typically in areas where HDR employees live and work, and Title 1 schools are given priority, according to Buchholz.
“Only one in four children will get on a bike in a year, so learning this skill at such a young age is a tremendous opportunity,” said Luke Bathurst, HDR’s North Texas area manager. “HDR is grateful to be part of a program that promotes healthy habits and builds great memories for a lifetime.”
Kara Palmer, clinical assistant professor of applied exercise science and movement science at the University of Michigan, said it’s vital for children to develop various motor abilities so they’re more likely to engage in sports-specific activities throughout their lifetime. Leg strength, reaction time, hand-eye coordination and postural control are among those abilities needed to ride a bike.
There’s also a notable safety element to learning how to ride a bike like paying attention to traffic laws and staying aware of your surroundings, Palmer added.
“The importance of bike riding for health: It’s one of the skills that people can engage in for physical activity across the entire lifespan. But it’s also a really important skill for autonomy,” Palmer said. “If children don’t have access to bikes, which may be the case, then providing them access to that equipment and the opportunity to learn I think is huge.”
Starting with balance bikes, which have no pedals, rather than starting with pedals and training wheels is more beneficial for beginners because they’re able to learn how to control their center of gravity early in the process, she said.
“Balance bikes teach children how to do postural control on the bike and steering on the bike, so some of that hand-eye coordination, before adding the pedaling. We see (this) has been advantageous as opposed to doing a training wheel and teaching the pedaling with the steering and then adding in the balance,” Palmer said. “If you have training wheels on the bike, every time you get out of your center of gravity, basically the training wheel catches you… if you just don’t have those training wheels to begin with, you have to learn how to manipulate your body and catch those changes of postural control.”
