Writing and Fine Motor Development(Kindergarten readiness)
Children should have strength and dexterity in their hands and fingers before being asked to manipulate a pencil on paper. These days it is becoming more commonplace for children to have writing difficulties and an inappropriate pencil grasp because young children are engaged in writing experiences before their hands are ready. This leads to frustration on both the parts of the parents and children.
I have collected three excellent websites to get ideas for building strength and dexterity through manipulatives and fine motor skill development.
Activities with Fine Motor Manipulatives
Handwriting and Fine Motor Activities
How To Know If A Student Needs Further Help?
Many younger students are presenting with immaturity of hand use. With practice and use of suggested exercises, children can develop greater skill. The students we see in occupational therapy generally have layers of neuroimmaturity to include visual-spatial disorganization, immature hand use along with low muscle tone. After a few months of practice they just aren’t improving. It is appropriate to call in an Occupational Therapist to make an observation, to see if an evaluation is necessary. We always want to try and provide the simplest support first, to see if practice and maturity can impact fine motor skills.
Free printable pre-writing practice worksheets
Free printable scissors skills worksheets
Letter/Sound Recognition:
Wikki Stix Alphabet Cards
Free Alphabet Printable Exercises from Starfall.com
Free printable alphabet dominoes
Sight word practice:
Kinesthetic activities
- writing the words on paper, on the chalkboard
- building the words out of playdough, clay, or using magnetic letters
- fingerpainting the words in finger paint or pudding or shaving cream
- playing word hopscotch – using the sight words instead of numbers (can be done either indoors or out).
- tracing the words in a layer of cornmeal on a cookie sheet
- playing word hullaballoo. Have the child write the words on large pieces of paper , scatter them on the floor, and call out directions to the child ala the game Hullabaloo. “Jump to the word ___”, “Swim on over to the word____”, “Crawl over to the word ____”
Memory games
- make duplicates of the flash cards and play games like memory (shuffle the duplicated cards, lay them face down and try to pick two of the same words) or go fish
- put all but one of the flash cards on a tray and see if the child remembers which card is missing, repeat a few times with different missing words.
Sight word treasure hunt.
Post the sight words visibly around the house. Have child look for the words. Have them write the word down and see how many they can find.
I have already used so many of these links from your site – they are great. Thanks.
You’re welcome. When I find more, I will be posting more. I’m always on the lookout for good teaching aids.
I’m always on the look out for sites which have interesting material for children re: penmanship. I found this one which has very useful information about fine motor skills, red and blue lined paper which can be printed out and they have a section which allows you to type in words which get transformed to writing practice pages.
It at:
http://www.handwritingforkids.com
Enjoy!
Oh, awesome! Thanks for sharing it. I’ll add it above to my links.