By Amy DeNicola-Hickman
During the preschool years of development children learn a tremendous amount of fine motor skills. These skills are not only required for writing, but are necessary for activities of daily living like self care, eating, and taking care of belongings. Fine motor skills are also used in art activities and play. Recent research has demonstrated young children’s fine motor skills are less developed in young children than in previous years. For example, more children who grew up in the 1990’s were playing outside digging in the sandbox, creating art projects and building with legos than now in a time of technology. Children know how to use the tablet or phone far earlier. These fine motor skills require practice for the hand strength and muscle memory to develop. Children learn these skills during play based activities and not on a tablet.
Parents can easily provide their children with the practice necessary for fine motor skills while developing independence and self confidence in children’s self care. In an activity as simple as learning to brush your teeth children are learning how to turn the knob for water, squeeze the tube for the toothpaste, brush with a back and forth hand movement, pour water into a cup to rinse. These are all skills which align with school readiness. For example, turning knobs in school, squeezing a glue bottle, pouring paint for an art project.
Children who are preschool age are all ready to begin to learn dressing skills. These involve a tremendous amount of fine motor skills. Donning and doffing socks, buttons, zippers, velcro on shoes (tying shoes comes a little later) and snaps all require fine motor skills. Start your children on these skills by a technique we call scaffolding. For example, once your child has their jacket on you may start the zipper at the bottom by modeling for your child. Have your child finish the zipper by pinching and pulling up. Assist with one sock modeling how to scrunch the sock, place there foot in and pinch and pull the sock up. Then have your child try the other sock. These skills take patience, try them on the weekend when you may have more time and you do not have to rush out the door to work or school. Buttons, zippers and snaps are harder skills and may still need some work in Kindergarten. It is expected that they will need assistance so don’t worry if they don’t get past the first steps.
Cooking and eating also hold tremendous value in fine motor skills. Children this age can learn to stir, spread with a knife, pierce food with a fork, cut with a knife, squeeze ketchup or mustard bottles, set the table, and pour drinks. Children learn a pincer grasp by picking up small food items like raisins from a plate. These tasks are all skills that build independence and prepare students to go to school. They need to be practiced at home in their daily routines.
Play is how children learn best and hands on meaningful experiences in play support children’s fine motor skills. Play with puzzles, blocks, train tracks, stringing beads, and board games all involve fine motor skills. Preschoolers should be spending time each day playing with this type of material. Playing outdoors, digging in the sand, shoveling dirt into a small bucket, picking up a collection of stones or shells on the beach. This is all fine motor, even the clean up of placing the toys back in the container is a fine motor skill. Taking time to shut down electronic toys, tablets and televisions is super important at this age.
In preschool art centers are magic for fine motor skills. Children are cutting, gluing, drawing(scribbling), ripping paper, peeling stickers, painting (finger and with a brush), pulling tops of magic markers, pushing tops back on the glue or markers, playdough/clay (rolling, pinching, pulling, cutting). I could go on and on with activities that align with fine motor. Set up an art center at home. It is a bit messy and you should think about what is best for your family. Outdoor set ups work as well. You do not need to buy expensive kits. You can make playdough with a recipe from the internet and just a few ingredients and children love to participate in this. Found objects are fantastic in the art center. Bottle tops, cardboard boxes, newspapers and magazines go a long way to make projects. Tape paper to the wall for painting you do not need an easel. Use old address labels for stickers, fingers or q-tips to paint.Use the art center to stretch your child’s communication skills while you create. It is a perfect time to connect and talk about various shapes and colors, directionality words up down side to side, painting round and around and texture words like soft, bumpy.
Fine motor in play and meaningful activities can be quite easy. Children who enter Kindergarten with these experiences learn to write and be independent in school. Leave the academic part to the Kindergarten teacher. Use your preschool time to support the readiness skills above and you will find they will be truly successful and you will have made lasting connections with your child.
