Module 1 • School Readiness Activities to develop handwriting skills
There are significant prerequisites for printing skills that begin in infancy and continue to emerge through the pre-school years. The following activities support and promote fine motor and visual motor development:
Body stability
The joints of the body need to be stable before the hands can be free to focus on specific skilled fine motor tasks.
• Wheelbarrow walking, crab walking, and wall push-ups. • Do exercises using the monkey bars on the playground.
Fine motor skills
When a certain amount of body stability has developed, the hands and fingers begin to work on movements of dexterity and isolation, as well as different kinds of grasps.
Children will develop fine motor skills best when they work on a VERTICAL or near- vertical surface as much as possible. In particular, the wrist must be in extension (bent back in the direction of the hand).
• Attach a large piece of drawing paper to the wall. Have the child use a large marker and try to trace the outlines of drawings.
• Play the game: connect-the-dots. Again, make sure the child’s strokes connect dots from left to right, and from top to bottom.
• Trace around stencils – the non-dominant hand should hold the stencil flat and stable against the paper, while the dominant hand pushes the pencil firmly against the edge of the stencil. The stencil must be held firmly.
• Attach a large piece of felt to the wall, or use a felt board. The child can use felt shapes to make pictures. Magnetic boards can be used the same way.
• Have the child work on a blackboard, using chalk instead of a marker. Do the same kinds of tracing activities as suggested above.
Ocular motor control
This refers to the ability of the eyes to work together to follow and hold an object in the line of vision as needed – visual tracking.
• Use a flashlight against the ceiling. Have the child lie on his/her back or tummy and visually follow the moving light from left to right, top to bottom, and diagonally.
• Find hidden pictures in books. (There are special books for this – “Where’s Wally?” series is one example.)
• Maze activities – let the child follow the maze with his finger or crayon.
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