Fine Motor Skills

Fine Motor Skills are an essential area of child development.  It is the development of the small muscles in the hand and fingers that are used to perform delicate movements with precision.  We often notice when children have poorly developed fine motor skills only when they get to school. They are unable to form letters easily or as neatly as other children.  They often struggle with things like using scissors. There are however, some red flags that you may have missed before they get to this stage.  Fine motor co-ordination is essential for doing tasks such as doing up a button or zip, tying up shoelaces, as well as brushing teeth independently.  Encouraging your children to do these activities by themselves can give you a good indication of whether their fine motor skills are developing nicely.

I once taught a student who had such poor fine motor skills at 7 years old, that he was unable to write his own name legibly.  More handwriting practice was only going to bore him and turn him off the idea completely.  Quite frankly it wouldn’t have made much difference to him.  He couldn’t control his hand, fingers and thumb well enough to be able to form the letters.  He knew how they were supposed to be formed but his hand couldn’t execute it for him.  His fingers needed strengthening first before we could develop fine motor control.  I’m not going to lie, it did take a very long time, possibly due to his age, but he got there in the end.  These fine motor skills need to be developed sooner rather than later, so they can be built upon.  Below are some of the activities that I used with him that helped.

Most of the activities require equipment you would already have at home, or things that can be purchased from a discount shop reasonably cheaply.

Fine Motor Skill Activities