Teaching Children Gymnastics 2nd Edition
ISBN: 0736044345
ISBN13: 9780736044349
Edition Description: 248pp Paperback
Author: Peter H. Werner

Reviewer: Elisa Busby

In Teaching Children Gymnastics, from idea to assessment, Mr. Werner has worked very hard to provide a complete look at what quality gymnastics can be in the physical education class. He starts at the very beginning with a thorough description of the plan for the book and what his purpose is in writing. In chapter 1, “Why Is It Important to Teach Children Gymnastics?,” Mr. Werner defines developmentally appropriate gymnastics, and how gymnastics fits into physical education and the National Standards (which refer to the first edition of standards.). He makes a compelling case for gymnastics as part of a quality program, acknowledging that there can be great improvements from what was done in the past and he proceeds to show the reader how.

The next three chapters help the novice teacher begin to plan and prepare. The experienced teacher will have some 'ah hah!' moments and be reminded of forgotten ideas that have gotten lost through the years. Mr. Werner answers questions of how to set up the class, how to use demonstrations, how to develop a safe working environment for the students, creating a plan that will develop through the grades, and assessing the various levels of ability, domains, and reporting the results to students and parents. The nuts and bolts of preparing to teach units on gymnastics are laid out through these chapters.

In Part II, Mr. Werner provides very detailed plans for specific lessons in his three groupings of Gymnastics experiences, Traveling, and Statics and Rotation. These lessons are so detailed that he gives you word for word monologues of what he would say throughout each lesson as if you had a recording of the lesson. At first I was put off by these long descriptions. I thought they almost expected the reader to memorize them or a critical element might be lost and ruin the quality of the lesson. After reading through I calmed down, and saw that after reading them I got a feeling of how the rhythm or flow of a class might go and I started picking out the development that he built for the children within a single class. His descriptions flowed from the warm-up to a review, onto the new tasks, and concluded with a quick verbal or written review of the new concept or task introduced in the lesson.

After each description there are assessment ideas, extension ideas, fitness, integration, and inclusion ideas that really help. The assessment ideas focus on specifics from the lesson that help you as the teacher and the student look more critically at movement. The extensions, fitness, integration, and inclusion ideas will help the teacher differentiate the experience for the students which will improve learning and skill development.

I found "Teaching Children Gymnastics" to be an in-depth, quality look at the wealth of teaching and learning opportunities that gymnastics can hold for our physical education students. If a physical education teacher really wants to go beyond the routine rolls, cartwheel, headstand and handstand that are the whole experience in gymnastics for many of our students, Mr. Werner’s book will help immensely. The novice and experienced teachers can improve their teaching and students’ learning in physical education with gymnastics based on this book.

On a five star scale I would rate this book as a four.