MOUNT SAVAGE — Fifth-graders at Mount Savage Elementary School jogged in place and hopped to the left and right over an imaginary line Thursday morning, but they weren’t taking a PE class.

They were getting ready to read.

“It’s designed to get their heart rate up,” said Molly Stewart, assistant principal, who is leading third- and fifth-graders in 30 minutes of prereading exercise three days a week this fall. “Then we do some agility things so that their brains are firing.”

Stewart, who’s working on a doctorate in instructional leadership at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, believes the physical activity might make a difference in students’ academic performance. She’s conducting a 12-week research project at Mount Savage and John Humbird elementary schools to try to prove her hypothesis.

“There’s a lot of research that says their attention span is better, their cognitive abilities are enhanced after physical activity,” said Stewart, whose research project is called Literacy Fitness: Examination of the Relationship Between Increased Physical Activity and Literacy Skills.

“In the end, I’m hoping this experiment will show there’s an increase in scores in their reading fluency and executive functioning of literacy skills.”

Stewart settled on the topic for her dissertation because of a concern about epidemic childhood obesity and a decrease in physical education at public schools.

In 2006, nearly 10 million children and adolescents ages 6 to 19 were considered obese, according to the American Heart Association. That same year, just 4 percent of U.S. schools had daily PE classes — down from 42 percent in 1991, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Years ago we had PE every day in school,” said Stewart, adding that Mount Savage shares a PE teacher with Cresaptown Elementary School. “Now we have one 45-minute period a week. ... I think No Child Left Behind, all that pressure from the test scores, overshadows a lot of other areas.”

Though the Maryland State Department of Education requires all schools to “provide a comprehensive physical education instructional program to all students each year in grades kindergarten through eight and to satisfy the half-credit graduation requirement for physical education in high school,” it doesn’t specify how many minutes per week PE should be taught, said Mike Mason, specialist for PE for MSDE.

That’s up to local school boards.

In Allegany County, elementary schools are required to provide at least 20 minutes a day of supervised recess, preferably outdoors. The board asks schools to find opportunities for physical exercise outside of PE class in order for students to get the 60 minutes a day recommended by national experts.

“Toward that end,” the policy states:

• Classroom health education will complement physical education by reinforcing the knowledge and self-management skills needed to maintain a physically active lifestyle and to reduce time spent on sedentary activities, such as watching television.

• Opportunities for physical activity will be incorporated into other subject lessons.

• Teachers will provide short physical activity breaks between lessons or classes, as appropriate.

All third- and fifth-graders at Mount Savage and John Humbird who received parental approval are participating in Stewart’s research project, with some wearing pedometers throughout the study to measure how many steps they take each day.

The program started Sept. 21.

“You can see the childhood obesity creeping up with kids in the county,” Stewart said. “We don’t have time to address it. I hope that in the future, school systems will see the need for increased physical activity as a way to improve the overall health and literacy skills of a student without negatively impacting other curricular areas.”

Contact Kristin Harty Barkley at kharty@times-news.com.