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Posted: Wednesday, 18 January 2012 07:10PM
Fine Motor Skills
What are fine motor skills?
If you have children you will no doubt have been told by professionals of the importance of your child developing his or her fine motor skills. Well, what are they?
Fine motor skills relate to the small muscles of the body that enable such functions as writing, grasping small objects, and fastening clothing. Weaknesses in fine motor skills can affect a child's ability to eat, write legibly, use a computer, turn pages in a book, and even perform personal care tasks such as dressing and grooming. Ultimately weak fine motor skills could affect a child’s ability to progress in the world around him.
How can you help develop a child’s fine motor skills?
It’s never too early to help your child to develop fine motor skills. From birth give your child toys that he can hold and handle, touch and feel – rattles that he can grasp and turn in his hands, soft toys with different textures, colours and sounds, even touchy feely books.
  
As the child becomes a toddler, you could introduce threading and lacing activities. There are many lacing bead sets available with different themes to enable the development not only of fine motor skills but also imaginative play. Soft clay is ideal – what child can resist squeezing play dough through his fingers and watching what happens? Or how about hiding an item in the soft dough for your child to find?
  
Once a child starts to hold a pencil, encourage him to colour in pictures, draw shapes and lines. My son was scribbling on paper long before he could form any letters. Mind you, there is that moment when you don’t know what he’s drawn and have to ask carefully what it is. “Is it an elephant?” “No, it’s a car mummy. Can’t you tell?”
Encourage cutting with scissors – straight lines, zigzags, curved lines and more. Holding a pair of scissors will help strengthen his hand and the muscles that will help him hold a pen and undo buttons for PE when he starts school.
 
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