Handwriting and fine motor skill development go hand in hand and can have a big impact on your child's development, so we are sharing what you need to know to help with development of fine motor skills and handwriting along with some things you can do at home!
Why fine motor skills are essential
From birth to eight years old your child is gaining and refining their fine motor skills.
Along with writing development, fine motor skills also impact your child's artistic and drawing experiences.
Learning to write is a complex process and having a solid set of fine motor skills is an excellent way to make this experience easier and help the learning process along the way.
Focussing on refining motor skills with early stages of handwriting development allow these two skills to grow together!
How to refine them
Refining motor skills along with developing handwriting skills comes down to one big thing. Practice. Providing your child with enough tools, activities and time to practice these skills and grow them at their own pace is key 🔑
The benefits of pencil grips
In the early phases pencil grips can be an amazing support to your child as they practice using their hands in this new way. As they get used to holding a pencil and using it to create the shapes that make up letters and numbers, a grip provides a transition period.
Developing correct pencil grip as early as possible gives your child better control over what they are doing and the shapes they are making which makes the writing process more efficient and gives an added boost of confidence in the early stages.
Activities you can try at home
There are plenty of activities you can do at home to help prepare your child to write independently or to continue practicing skills they may be working on at school. Depending on your child's age and their skill level you can try:
- Colouring in the alphabet to start learning letter shapes
- Tracing letters and numbers
- Work with tracing short words to get used to writing letters in various orders
- Learning to write their name without tracing
Find below a useful chart of the stages of development of a child's pencil grip. Remember that all children skills and development are different and this is a guide only.
