Preschool fine motor and handwriting development

Today in our Mini Charmer's Pre-K class, we continued our focus on numbers.  Our class contains ten gifted kiddos ready to learn formal handwriting prior to kindergarden.

After spending the first several months on uppercase letters, working on numbers is a nice change of pace.   Boys especially like numbers as they relate to numbers often better than girls ( girls often have an easier time with letters).

Our first activity is for the kids to find the numbered gingerbread men in the gym.  Each child is assigned a number to find.

This format helps kids to increase skills in visual perceptual, visual memory, and number recognition.  This also helped with team building, as we heard "Jack, here is your number!", "thanks!", and so on.   Next we took all of the numbers and laid them out on the floor one by one.  I asked "is a 4 bigger or smaller than a 12?".   As we continued this process we ordered them from 1-20 on the floor and then counted forward and backwards.  Many kids this age do not consistently recognize numbers in the teens and so this repetition is great for them.  

After some good gross motor action in the gym, we settled in the classroom and did centers that warm up and increase fine motor skills. 

Wind up toys were a big hit. Wind up toys help so much with translation (stabilizing something with one part of your hand and mobilizing with the other part) as well grip strength. 

Pop beads were another center.  These pop beads are quite hard, but the kids had no trouble at all with it!

Pop beads of this size are super because they force a child to utilize a stable pincer grasp while using strength in pushing together.   This carries over into grasping a pencil correctly.  

Another fun center was the textured stencil and rubbings of dinosaurs and sea creatures.  This would also be a super Christmas gift (kids love these).  They are made by Melissa and Doug and can be found at Toys and Company, whom we partner with.  The stencils are two part-  they first can be used to stencil amazing animals, insects or dinosaurs and then they can be used as a rubbing plate.  

In this picture, he is completing the stencil side.  Next, he will put the textured stencil under the paper and then rub the crayon to make the drawing come to life.  As an occupational therapist, this is one of my all time favorite activities to develop hand and handwriting skills WITHOUT doing handwriting.  Great fun for all.  My 11 year old even likes doing these stencils.  

Lastly, I teach the direct skill of writing numbers.   We use our Handwriting Without Tears book and the kids lay on their stomachs (it works on core strength but also makes sure that the wrists are stabilized appropriately).  

I give everyone a slate chalkboard and demonstrate how to write each number 1-3 today and then each child practices it.  I was truly amazed at how well they did and they were so proud of their accomplishment.  It is a wonderful experience to see children learn to love handwriting and to gain such confidence.  

Occupational therapy for poor handwriting: why it works

Most of our clients come to us to improve some component of handwriting or writing skill.  Parents often question why occupational therapists work with handwriting so much.  Handwriting is a very complicated neurological and anatomical process.  Usually poor or inefficient handwriting or penmanship is simply the symptom of a developmental process that is not functioning smoothly.   When a well trained pediatric occupational therapist evaluates handwriting issues, they should be evaluating specific developmental areas. 

Optimal handwriting skills also require fundamental skills such as:
core strength
sensory processing
fluency praxis
processing speed
trunk stability
bilateral integration
upper body strength
visual motor integration (also known as eye hand coordination)
visual perception (vision to brain processing)
pencil grasp, finger strength and
postural stability

This is why traditional handwriting tutoring by someone other than an occupational therapist may not give your child the improvement that they need.  Once a trained occupational therapist has helped a child to improve these underlying fundamental skill sets, then a child's handwriting will quickly improve.