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Children love to explore with their hands; this is how they learn about the world and find their passions. It is during their early years that they develop fine-motor skills that will lead them to successful lives; this begins with mastering basic functions, such as feeding or dressing themselves. According to an article by Christy Isbell in Community Playthings, young children must be able to use these skills in a variety of ways. This might include clapping with music, identifying characters in storybooks, washing dolls, or stacking blocks.
There are myriad ways in which fine-motor skills can be fostered. “A quality preschool classroom offers a young child many opportunities to explore and develop her fine-motor skills in personally meaningful ways,” says Isbell. Skills such as cutting, stringing, and stacking, allow children to have these experiences. This is integral to a child’s development between the ages of infancy and seven years, because this is when children’s fine-motor skills grow the most.
Educators and parents have become accustomed to pushing formal handwriting skills too early in children’s development. According to Isbell, Pre-K children should actually spend more time playing with manipulatives and less with writing exercises. Pushing too hard before children are ready can actually have a negative impact on them-they might lose interest in writing! “Preschoolers should be more adept at several basic fine motor skills before they attempt more challenging fine motor activities like pre-writing and using scissors,” says Isbell, who goes on to offer a list of important precursors. Here are a few:
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Developmental Readiness. Children should be able to build and stack objects to help them become more developmentally ready for more complex tasks, like stringing beads.
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Grasp. Children should practice holding writing tools before they will be proficient at pre-writing.
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Bilateral Hand Use. Children should be able to use two hands simultaneously while completing activities. For example, they would be able to hold down a piece of paper with one hand while drawing on it with another.
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Eye-Hand Coordination. Children should be able to combine the use of shoulders, elbows, wrists, and fingers with their visual and spatial skills.
Isbell reminds readers that Pre-K children learn best through repetition and experimentation. She suggests having a multitude of materials at the ready, such as paper, clay, blocks, and drawing utensils, so that children can explore whatever intrigues them. It’s especially important that they can express themselves on paper.
Process is more important than the products of activities. Giving children choices when presented with paper and watercolors provides a much different experience than offering a coloring book and crayons. They learn fine-motor skills most efficiently when they play and when daily life activities allow them to work at a pace at their own level. All aspects of the classroom environment contribute to a young child’s fine-motor skills.
Click here to read more about nurturing fine motor skills.
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