Fine Motor Skills and Handwriting. What are Fine Motor Skills? Fine motor skills are small movements...
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Transcript of Fine Motor Skills and Handwriting. What are Fine Motor Skills? Fine motor skills are small movements...
Fine Motor Skills and Handwriting
What are Fine Motor Skills?
Fine motor skills are small movements — such as picking up small objects and holding a spoon — that use the small muscles of the fingers, toes, wrists, lips, and tongue.
Gross motor skills are the bigger movements — such as rolling over and sitting — that use the large muscles in the arms, legs, torso, and feet.
Development of Motor Skills• Children develop motor skills in a head to toe
direction. • Children achieve control of joints closest to the
body first.• Control and stability of joints closest to the body
is essential to allow controlled hand movements. • Initial movements are “whole body”
movements. Later children learn to move different parts of the body separately.
Development of Motor Skills• When first grasping objects children will use the
whole hand. All fingers are doing the same thing at the same time.
• With practise children will develop ability to use the thumb separately and in opposition to the fingers
• Further development produces individual finger movements for more refined, precise grasping.
An interesting fact about the hand…
About a quarter of the motor cortex in the human brain (the part of the brain which controls all movement in the body) is devoted to the muscles of the hands.
Fine Motor Skills
“Fine motor” refers to the movements we make with the small muscles of the hands. Children start to use their hands right at birth to explore their own bodies and the world around them. Their fine motor skills develop as their whole body starts to move and become more stable. They also learn to do more things with their hands as their cognitive and social/emotional skills improve.
Why are they important?
Just as gross motor skills enable your child to perform important everyday tasks, such as getting out of bed and going downstairs for breakfast, fine motor skills allow for increasing independence in smaller but equally significant matters.
Fine Motor Skills in School…Some of the activities that require children to use their fine motor skills include:• glue things onto paper• clap hands• button and unbutton• work a zipper• use Lego• manipulate pencils and crayons well enough to colour,
draw and begin to form recognisable letters• cut out simple shapes with scissors
Activities to support Fine Motor Skills…
• Threading – beads onto string, pasta necklace• Play dough - squeeze it, squash it, stretch it, flatten it and roll
it – make cakes, sausages, worms, anything you like! • Making patterns with pegs • Using tweezers to pick things up• Cutting - use scissors to cut along straight lines, then wavy
lines, then around different shapes, find things you like in a catalogue.
Activities to support Fine Motor Skills…
• Pegging clothes onto a washing line• Shredding paper • Scrunching paper• Undoing zips• Picking a coin out of pasta using two fingers• Water play – transfer water from one container to
another just using a sponge – could be a bath time activity!
Fine Motor Skills and Handwriting
Pre-writing essentials…
• Stable Seated Posture• Hand and Finger Strength• In-hand manipulation• Finger isolation• Upper limb strength • Crossing midline
It is tricky!
• Handwriting is a very complex task• Understanding and planning each letter• Motor planning to translate the thought
(picture or letter) onto the page.
Why does pencil grip matter?
• Influences amount of finger movement available
• Determines amount of tension generated in the hand
• Fatigue of the hand • Pain and Discomfort • Speed and legibility of handwriting
The Tripod Grip
Developmental Pencil Grips
Developmental Pencil Grips
Developmental Pencil Grips
Developmental Pencil Grips
Pencil Pressure
Too Much Pressure•Will slow writing down •Reduce the ability to use smooth and flowing movements when writing•Can result in pain or cramping in the hands or fingers
Too Little Pressure•Poor control over pencil•Difficulty with letter formations•Faint handwriting which is difficult to read
Left Handers
• Writing with left hand is a different movement• Writes towards the body and pushes the
pencil• Often have unusual hand and wrist positions • Experience more pain in wrist and hand
Left Handers
• Position of Paper - tilt paper so top right corner is tilted towards child
• Position of arm and wrist• Hand below the writing line • Wrist straight
What is expected in Reception?
We will support children to grasp pencil between thumb and pad of index finger. Marker rests on first joint of middle finger. This is not an automatic process and children will often need support to achieve it.
