What are Motor Skills?
Motor skills are actions that involve the movement of muscles in the body. They are divided into two groups: gross motor skills and fine motor skills. Gross and Fine motor skills typically develop together, because many activities depend on the coordination of both types of motor skills. However refining the fine motor skills will improve upon coordination that will be necessary for larger movement and skills. Let’s start with defining both Gross and Fine Motor.
Gross Motor – abilities that allow people to do things that involve using the large muscles in the torso, arms and legs to complete whole-body movements. (Basically, movement of the larger muscle groups)
Fine Motor – the small movements of the hands, wrists, fingers, feet, toes, lips, and tongue. Fine Motor requires working the smaller muscles that help us to hold, move, and manipulate things.
Motor Skill development begins at birth and continues to develop and mature throughout a child’s life. All children develop motor skills at a different rate. By the time children start kindergarten they typically have developed a good amount of their Gross Motor skills as well as their Fine Motor skills. However, these skills are still strengthening and maturing.
Why do we need to continue to develop Motor Skills in Elementary Grades?
Let me tell you a story that will draw a beautiful illustration to help with the “why” question here.
A good friend of mine (we will call Mrs. M.) teaches 2nd grade. She loves her students. She loves her job. She loves experiencing new things. Each year, she chooses a teacher in a different grade level to swap classrooms with for the day. Now, Mrs. M does this for a couple reasons. First, she wants to be reminded of where the kids came from and what they will be experiencing in the future years. Second, she wants to evaluate her own placement and make a decision about whether she wants to stay put or try something new. Finally, Mrs. M knows she will always have a lot to learn and who best to learn from than the students of other fellow teachers! Mrs. M is reminded from this practice of what her own best practices are and what new elements she needs to include into her own classroom.
So one year, Mrs. M decided to trade classrooms for a day with a Kindergarten teacher in her building. At the end of the day, Mrs. M was frazzled, her hair a mess, her tights torn, and she looked exhausted! She responded at the end of the day, with the biggest hug for her coworker and she said “ I don’t know how you do it! I feel like I didn’t teach them a thing! I spent more time zipping, tying, locating materials, problem solving, and helping them navigate through their day than I did teaching. They are constantly moving, and need help with everything!” This is where I chuckle! You see, what Mrs. M didn’t realize, was that all of the helping she did was teaching them. I laugh everytime I think of Mrs. M. and Mrs. W trading classrooms that day. It wasn’t that she didn’t teach them anything, it was a different type of teaching.
In primary grades these kids’ motor skills have so much to do with how they get through their day. If you have had any experience around elementary age students I’m sure you know that the lower grades (k-2) are much more dependent upon the teachers to help with simple tasks such as zipping coats, tying shoes, handling their baggies in their lunchboxes, etc. This is not new news to anyone. This reason alone tends to scare teachers from wanting to venture into the world of primary education.
In the early elementary years, when a child’s fine motor skills are still developing and/or lacking, classroom tasks can be difficult resulting in delays in many aspects that are necessary for learning and functioning in the school environment. For example, students may start their day already frustrated because they were the last one to get unpacked. They may choose not to eat their lunch because they aren’t able to open a container. Or they may shut down when it’s time to write, because they cannot yet hold their pencil and/or it hurts their hand and fatigues quite quickly.
Lack of fine motor skills can affect how students learn. It can affect how they think and feel about learning. It absolutely affects their mindset about the kind of learner they are. The development of their motor skills really make or break student achievement.
A recent article in the American Journal of Occupational Therapist called Fine Motor Activities in Elementary School Children: A Replication Study, examined the motor and technology requirements of kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade classrooms. The study found that students spend up to 60% of the school day performing fine motor activities, with handwriting accounting for up to 18% of the day. It certainly makes sense that a large portion of the school day includes fine motor work. You can see how a student with weak fine motor skills may feel frustrated and in turn develop a lack of confidence in their abilities.
This study also found that fine motor skills were integrated into tasks throughout the day, including transitions to and from the classroom and between activities. Tasks like unzipping a backpack to get out paperwork for the teacher, gathering materials, managing writing utensils such as pencils and markers, activities of daily living (zipping and buttoning jackets for recess), and technology use (using a finger to participate on a Smartboard) all are included in the school day. These tasks require development and integration of fine motor skills.
Is your school equipped for developing Motor Skills?
Unfortunately the way that public schools are staffed and funded doesn’t allow for all students to be provided with the expertise of an Occupational Therapist. Likewise, regular education teachers are not always professionally trained on the proper strategies for building different fine motor skills. In addition, because fine motor development isn’t written into the State Standards, many school districts do not require teachers to place a focus on motor development. I have found that unless a teacher has a personal passion and gained an understanding from their own research and experiences, motor skills are left to chance. What I mean by this is that we just assume that as a child grows so will their motor skills. Think back to the school district I described at the beginning of this chapter. They were a perfect example of this happening. I challenge you to be the teacher that defies this belief.
Motor Skills begin to develop at birth and continue on into childhood. There are many factors that play a role in the development of motor skills. We all know that babies and toddlers hit developmental milestones at different times and at different rates. The same holds true for fine motor development.
Every child in your classroom will have different needs developmentally and will grow and develop at different rates. However, we have seen fine motor development (overall) decline in the past decade.
Why are Motor Skills declining in elementary age students?
- Academic State Standards– Our own mindset in the educational field and in society in the last couple of decades has been “a race to the top” for academics. We are all in such a rush to move on, know more, do more, and to be the best district, school, teacher, student, etc. We all feel the pressure! So we have pushed the academics and let the developmental areas (whether we realized it or not) fall behind. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard administrators say, when we implement a new best practice, something will have to go…you can only fit so much into a day. Well my friends, how do you decide what needs to go? Is there a way to get creative and integrate things so that you do not have to let developmental needs slip through the cracks?
- Pace of Life – Our lives have become so fast paced that our babies and toddlers are out and about in their strollers and car seats much more than they are on the ground moving and developing. This could be one factor explaining why we are seeing more and more delays in children’s motor development by the time they start school. This is not something that we can change or control, but it is something that we, as educators should be aware of so that we can plan to implement even more motor development strategies to support the cause.
- Preschool Attendance – We are seeing more and more children that do not attend preschool. Preschools provide rich environments for learning and developing. It is the one place that kids can learn through intentional, planned out developmental play. Preschools are oftentimes quite expensive and not mandated in most states. So, in an attempt to save money many families are not sending their kids to preschool at all.
- Kindergarten Age– When to send your child to kindergarten is a big topic these days. We have more and more 4 year olds starting kindergarten than ever before. The readiness age can be debated, however, so can the purpose and philosophy of what kindergarten is and should be. Decades ago, when most kindergarten programs were half day and play-based, it wasn’t a big deal to send a 4 year old to kindergarten. It was in fact, developmentally appropriate for many. Today the rigor of kindergarten is totally different and not as developmentally appropriate for a 4 year old. These developmentally young kids starting kindergarten today can seem to be lacking developmental skills such as fine motor in comparison to the older kids in the class.
Gross and Fine Motor Development must be and can easily be implemented in the elementary school years. These muscles are crucial for every day activities such as getting unpacked, zipping coats, organizing personal space, holding a pencil or crayons and gripping and manipulating objects. It is not only certain students with delays that need this work. Especially in pre-k and kindergarten, ALL students should be working their gross and fine motor skills on a daily basis. In the upper elementary grades, students also need to be given time to work those big and small muscles. Getting oxygen to their muscles will help them focus on their school work. There are many ways to allow older students to use their muscles while learning.
Developmental skills can deeply affect the input of academic standards. Which in turn, will affect students’ future academic achievement. For this reason it is vital that developing and practicing fine motor skills be added into our daily routines within our classrooms! Lucky for us, this is so easy to do and the kids love it!
You can read more about how to develop motor skills in my blog post titled: 10 Ways to Develop Fine Motor Skills at home or at School and How to Integrate Motor Skills into your School and Classroom.
Enjoy Being Their Difference,
