Speedy Hands, Happy Kids by Susan H. Shane

Allison French (12 yrs. old) with her Physical Education teacher mom, Charlotte: sport stacking in the Denver Airport

       Click, click, clack, click, clack, whoosh! The sound slowly penetrated my consciousness, as I sat reading in the Denver airport. I looked up to see a young girl sitting cross-legged on the floor moving upside-down, yellow plastic cups into various formations and stacks at mind-boggling speed. I watched, entranced. The girl repeatedly spread out the cups, formed a pyramid with them, lined them up and stacked them all together, ending with that satisfying “whoosh”. She was focused, yet relaxed, and clearly getting pleasure out of this bizarre activity.

What 12 year old Allison French was doing is called sport stacking (formerly and, quite obviously, called cup stacking). She was en route home to Houston, Texas with her physical education teacher mom, Charlotte, and a friend from her elementary school, 10 year old Austin. They’d just attended the 2010 World Sport Stacking (WSSA) Championships at the University of Denver. Over 700 stackers, ranging in age from four to over 60, from 18 countries competed in this year’s championships. 

Charlotte French brought sport stacking to Sampson Elementary in Houston several years ago, when she became convinced about the benefits of the sport: improved ambidexterity, better hand-eye coordination, excellent focus-training, and the benefits to the brain of cross-over work (i.e. when your left and right hands cross over one another while stacking, it purportedly strengthens the connection between your left and right hemispheres).

There are very few actual research studies supporting the touted benefits of sport

stacking. However, two experiments do prove some benefits of speed stacking, another term for this sport. One study of second graders showed that sport stackers (this group did 20 30-minute sessions of cup stacking) had significantly improved hand-eye coordination and reaction time in both hands compared with a similar group of second graders who didn’t do the sport stacking. A more recent study looked at reading skills in fifth graders, where one group did six weeks of sport stacking and the other group did not: the sport stackers improved significantly in reading comprehension (tested at the start and end of the study) in comparison with the kids who didn’t do sport stacking.

Given at least minimal evidence of concrete benefits of sport stacking and seeing the infectious enthusiasm of Austin and Allison for the sport, I was convinced that this activity has value. Austin believes that his transition from a “stop-and-go reader” to one whose reading now “flows” is attributable to his sport stacking experience. Likewise, Allison feels she enjoys reading much more and has better comprehension than she did before she began sport stacking.

Elsewhere in the airport I came across Lilian Chin, an eighth grader from Pleasanton, California. She was stacking miniature red cups just for fun, as she awaited her flight home from Denver. She’d just won second place in the Overall Doubles competition, working with a friend she met on You Tube, the common meeting ground for stackers. Lilian became “addicted” to sport stacking after a friend introduced her to it in May 2008. She considers stacking a fun hobby that helps her in ball sports by tuning up her hand-eye coordination and ambidexterity.

So, what does it take to become a sport stacker? The most logical place to start is at the World Sport Stacking Association website (www.WorldSportStackingAssociation.org).  There you can watch videos of very fast kids in action, learn the rules, and find a link to Speed Stacks where $35 will buy you a full set of cups, a “how to” DVD, a timer and a mat.

Which leads us to homeschoolers: why not incorporate the relatively inexpensive sport of cup stacking into your homeschool curriculum? Your kids will likely improve hand-eye coordination, reaction time and reading comprehension while engaging in a unique activity that provides them with fun and the opportunity for social interaction over the Internet and at home.

BIO: Susan Shane is a mother (former homeschooler of a daughter who is now in college), marine biologist (she studied dolphins, whales and manatees for 25 years) and freelance writer.

PUBLISHED in California HomeSchooler vol. 19, no. 1, February 2011