Ideas For Fine Motor Control

[Guest]

I have a child who has brilliant reading skills, not hot housed, 2 older siblings yr 4 and 2 all very sparky. He can read more or less anything put in front of him, even in October the handwritten labels on children's book bags written by their parents. He gets very frustrated with writing as his pencil skills are very poor, therefore any kind of work on paper does not motivate him and being aware of his shortcomings in this area he shys away from the sorts of activities that I think might help move him on. Creative activities are avoided like the plague and he has to be cajoled a great deal to have a go at them, sometimes enjoying them when the end product turns out well in his eyes.

 

We have chatted about why reading is 'pips' (according to him) and he understands that organising letters in a line helps him read and that random dotting of letters on a page or writing over the top of what you've already written makes it very hard for you or anyone else to read back. I wish I could think of something brilliant to get him to turn a corner as I feel that doing well will power his enthusiasm and motivation. Has anyone had a child like this before and found the magic solution? Any thoughts would be gratefully received.

 

AOB

[Marion]

Have you looked at the Write Dance materials?

[Guest]

hi i recently went on a training course about this they recommened a few things like:

different doughs, shiny, stretchy, gloop etc all of these my boys enjoy and are building their muscles.

painting fences etc with large brushes (boys loved this!)

washing bikes.

using large chalks outside

using egg shaped wrting tools ie chalks, paint brushes.

tweezer games ie beat the closk to pick up 10 pieces of pasta with tweezers.

using bikes to ride over large sheets of paper with paint on the wheels. (mine loved this, very very messy but enjoyable)

 

all help with building fine and gross muscles.

[Marion]

The boy in my class with the greatest difficulties struggles with upper body movement mainly shoulders. He cant for example swing his arms or make 'windmill' movements. Ive tried all the usual and have now asked for a referal to an occupational therapist and a unit we have in our area.

We do lots of the things mentioned plus

 

window cleaning (bit like karate kid........polish on polish off) but big big movements

weaving on the fence and large plastic netting

climbing ropes

tug of war

 

might be worth while looking at your childs upper body development as well as all the fine motor stuff

 

favourite with all my kids is putting pegs on a circle to see who can do the most before the sand timer runs out (they all beat me!)

Also pegging clothes numbers ect on washing line outdoors

[apple]

we use our brain gym time (when 2 children are being the register assistants and taking the register to the office) to do an aerobics work out. Lots of bilateral big arm and leg movements... all to the funked up beat of Madonna's 'Sorry'. All the children in the class can mow cross crawl and the majority can do the figure 8's; all done with lots of fun and good humour. At first I led the 'aerobics workout' but now we take it in turns for different children to lead it through the song (this is great also for PD/CD scales regarding linking movements together ) never one to miss an opportunity

 

Marion mentions the karate kid effect.. we've even done the workout to 'Kung Fu Fighting' and YMCA... I love it

[Marion]

My son is ADHD..........he was reading the NATO defense document while still at primary and didnt write until Y6 after I trained to teach Brain Gym.....and incidentally his fine motor skills were good just not the bit of his brain that controls writing

cross crawl and lazy 8s to compensate for him never crawling as a baby. Maybe worth asking the mum if child in question crawled ??????

[Guest]

Agree with all that's been said so far I also have a thing about non-permanent mark-making (tho I am in preschool) as I've found that children (and often it is boys) feel they can't produce anything worth keeping. We use a lot of dough on letters, 'writing' in sand in shallow trays, shaving foam, cornflour, rice etc etc. Every so often we will ask the child to take a digitial photo of patterns etc they have made so we can keep them for their 'special folder'.

We also use the computer and 2paint (part of 2simple) and they can choose to print off their masterpiece or not.

 

Also we have tried to find reasons for the chidrne to 'write'. Last week we had a police theme and oh my goodness the opportunities the children came up with! We all got fines! A parent had donated some small notepads and they were going round with those and doing a little scribble before handing out saying 'Pay £50 for speeding' or whatever....

Hope this helps

[Guest]

Thanks to all for the great replies. Marion I do wonder if he may be like your son as he does do other fine motor activities OK eg lego, duplo, building with bricks. Also fine on climbing frame. Tends not to be into bikes. Threading and such activities would be something he'd not naturally turn to. Pegging challenges sound good as he is quite a competitive spirit.

 

I'm not at all confident about brain gym. I know how to do some of the movements lazy 8s for example, but don't feel confident to start doing a work out though I really like the sound of the idea and am sure the children would love it. Any extra advice on that would be fab.

 

I saw some information about right dance on a course and thought it looked impressive. School was a bit non committal about investing money in it, worried about how it could be implemented. Do you use it Marion or anyone else?

 

Thanks again!

 

AOB

[Marion]

We introduced Write Dance this year in nursery and also for children having difficulties in reception. The children enjoy the movements and we are seeing some improvement (need to follow it through from the beginning before can guage really) We have changed the names of the children in the stories to those of people we know to give the children ownership. I bought the Write Dance in nursery (FS) myself as school buget wouldnt stretch (got it from Amazon around £17)