ParticipACTION’s Early Years Report Card: Are Young Kids Developing Physical Literacy?

On October 20, ParticipACTION released the 2026 ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for the Early Years, the country’s first report card focused entirely on children from birth to age 4.¹ The top line is encouraging: two-thirds (67%) of young children meet the physical activity recommendation in the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years, and most are getting enough sleep.

But only 25% meet all three recommendations, for physical activity, screen time and sleep, at the same time. That indicator earned a D-. Among toddlers, it’s 15%.

So most young children meet the physical activity and sleep recommendations. Screen time is the main gap: fewer than half meet that recommendation, and a child has to meet all three to count toward the 25%.

The Four Lowest Grades
  • 24-Hour Movement Behaviours: D- (25%)
  • Active Transportation: D+ (37%)
  • Structured Physical Activity: C- (41%)
  • Sedentary Screen Time: C (48%)

Each of these depends on adult decisions: how children get around, whether they’re enrolled in programs, and how much screen time is allowed.

What the Report Says About Physical Literacy

The report card measures movement behaviours, not physical literacy. But it names physical literacy in its recommendations, calling for educators and parents to have the knowledge, resources and support to foster it in young children so they stay active beyond the early years.

Physical literacy is “the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical activities for life.” Movement is how young children develop it, but not all movement develops it equally. Running around the same backyard adds up to minutes. Providing diverse movement opportunities like throwing, catching, climbing, swimming and balancing in different environments develops a broad base of fundamental movement skills. As Developing Physical Literacy: Building a New Normal for All Canadians explains, physical literacy must be developed; it doesn’t simply emerge as children grow.

Even highly active children can miss it. Mariane Parent competed internationally in synchronized skating, yet as an adult she’s afraid of balls. Read her story in The Hidden Cost of Early Specialization.

In Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity (LTD), birth to about six years old is the Active Start stage, the first of three foundation stages, followed by FUNdamentals and Learn to Train.² Active Start calls for daily movement on land, in water, on ice and snow, and in the air; mostly child-led play; facilitated by trained adults and safe opportunities to explore risks and limits. The teachers, coaches and instructors that welcome children at five or six inherit whatever gaps the early years leave.

What This Means

For Early Childhood Educators

Settings score well in active playtime. The gap is training.

  • Early childhood education earned a B+, and 89% of settings provide at least 120 minutes of active play a day.
  • Nearly all facilities (97%) have a written movement policy, but only 53% provide or facilitate professional development on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or sleep, and only 55% of educators report receiving pre-service training in these areas.
  • Only 61% of settings have a written no-screen-time policy. The report recommends screen-free child care.
  • The report recommends embedding physical literacy and fundamental movement skills in educator training, with training during paid hours and ongoing mentorship.

For Sport, Recreation and Community Programs

Structured physical activity, such as swimming lessons, parent-and-tot gymnastics and dance classes, earned a C- (41%).

  • Participation rises with age: 24% of infants, 36% of toddlers and 63% of preschoolers take part.
  • Children in low-income households are far less likely to take part than those in high-income households (31% compared with 52%). Two of the three data sources that examined it also found lower participation among children whose parents were born outside Canada.
  • The report recommends free, low-cost, and drop-in programs, as well as family-based programs that target motor skills.
  • Programs for this age group should follow Active Start: mostly child-led play, varied environments, and fundamental movement skills before sport-specific skills.

In practice: In 2021, the District of Sicamous, B.C., supported by PLAY Shuswap, a local physical literacy working group, opened Little Bear’s Childcare Centre. It was the town’s first daycare, designed with physical literacy in mind and with evening hours for families working irregular shifts.

For Policy-Makers

  • Only 22% of communities have a formal strategy for physical activity and sport.
  • Every province and territory mentions daily outdoor play in child care legislation, but only four formally mention physical activity.
  • Only B.C. references the Canadian 24-Hour Movement Guidelines for the Early Years in its child care legislation.
3 Questions to Ask About Your Early Years Program
  1. Is our active play time developing skills, or just filling minutes? Look at a typical day and ask which movement skills children actually practised.
  2. Has everyone delivering our movement policy been trained on it? A written policy only works if staff understand why it says what it says.
  3. Which families aren’t here, and what’s stopping them? Check cost, registration, schedules and language. In Sicamous, evening hours were built in from the start.
So, Are Young Kids Developing Physical Literacy?

The report doesn’t answer that directly. Its closest indicator is motor development: 80% of young children meet age-specific gross and fine motor milestones. But those milestones come from a screening tool for neurodevelopmental conditions, so they show that most children aren’t at risk, not that they’re developing a broad base of movement skills.

What the report does show is that most young children meet the physical activity recommendation, and that whether that activity develops physical literacy depends a great deal on the adults around them.

“Most child care settings in Canada have movement policies in place. What’s missing is training. Only about half of early childhood educators report any pre-service training in physical activity, sedentary behaviour or sleep, and fewer than half of post-secondary programs offer a course focused on active play. We can’t expect every program to develop children’s physical literacy without that foundation,” said Drew Mitchell, CEO of Sport for Life.

Learn More
Notes

¹ ParticipACTION, A Strong Start for Canada’s Youngest: Let’s Grow from Here. The 2026 ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for the Early Years (Toronto: ParticipACTION, 2026), https://www.participaction.com/eyrc.

² Colin Higgs et al., Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity 3.0 (Victoria: Sport for Life Society, 2019).

³ Kabir Hosein and Richard Way, New-to-Canada Long-Term Development in Sport and Physical Activity Pathway (Victoria: Sport for Life Society, 2025).

Information has been provided from The 2026 ParticipACTION Report Card on Physical Activity for the Early Years with permission from ParticipACTION.

SPORT FOR LIFE © Privacy and sensitive information policy

Skip to content