Fine motor skills

To develop fine motor skills, a child needs a strong base of support, namely the trunk, shoulder girdle and arm.

Difficulties in this area include:

• holding their arm away from their body when doing fine motor tasks
• having tension in the shoulder when completing a fine motor task (such as threading, handwriting or cutting)
• using whole arm movements for colouring and drawing, instead of hand movements
• pressing too hard on their pencil when writing or drawing.

It is important to build strength in the larger muscles of the trunk, shoulder and arm to create a good base of support, before focussing on the smaller muscles of the hand and fingers.

How you can help

Weight-bearing activities allow for the muscles around the shoulder girdle to work together and ensure a strong and stable shoulder joint.

Activities that require the arms to be held up against gravity for periods of time, similarly, help to strengthen the shoulders.

This includes:

• climbing on climbing frames, monkey bars and obstacle courses
• wheelbarrow walking
• working on a vertical surface such as an easel
• throwing a frisbee
• playing Twister
• chair push-ups
• playing tug-of-war with a piece of cord or rope
• bat and ball games
• animal walks: see how many different animals you can think of!

Once a child has a comfortable base of support, it is important that they have adequate strength in the hand to complete tasks.

Lack of hand and finger strength can look like:

• difficulty opening and closing taps or large containers
• getting a sore hand when writing
• not putting much pressure when mark making
• difficulty pushing and pulling apart connector, such as Lego or Duplo
• opening and closing glue or scissors.

How you can help

Suggested strategies and activities:

• placing small items in various containers – encourage the child to open the containers in order to get to the items inside
• playdough or theraputty exercises are great to increase hand strength and finger skill. Try making your favourite animals or use commercially available playdough cutters
• keep a stress ball for journeys in the car or bus or when watching TV. Squeeze it using one hand at a time
• construction games such as Lego or Meccano where you have to pull pieces apart, push them together or manipulate them
• use tongs to pick up small objects, such as poms poms, marbles or small toys
• craft activities including – cutting, colouring, painting, chalk drawing, hole punching, stapling, using eye droppers, tearing up and scrunching paper for collages and artworks
• using water guns and spray bottles can be used to aim at targets or make patterns on the floor outside
• windup toys
• use children’s chopsticks to pick up and sort small items
• use clothing pegs
• popping bubble wrap
• wringing water out of towels to wet plants
• spraying bottles to spray plants, make spray paintings.

We learn and explore through the use of our hands and senses, therefore, having good fine motor pinches and grips allows us to explore further, perform tasks independently and engage with objects in our environment.

How you can help

Suggested strategies and activities for grips and pinches are:

• board games that promote small movements of the hand, such as Jenga or Operation.
• tweezer and tong activities
• posting small beads or buttons through a small hole
• stringing beads - make a necklace or bracelet while holding several beads in hand at a time. Start with larger beads and work towards smaller sizes as the student improves
• lacing cards
• peg activities
• practicing doing up different fastenings and buttons
• using droppers to drop water or paint
• drawing with short pieces of chalk and crayons
• painting with cotton wool or paint brushes.

Ensure to adapt the difficulty of the activities you do to the student’s abilities.

In-hand manipulation is the ability to hold and move objects within the hand.

This is important for more complex fine motor tasks such as handwriting, using cutlery, doing up shoelaces and doing up fastenings.

How you can help

Suggested strategies and activities for in-hand manipulation:

• put small objects in play dough such as coins or small beads. Have the child find the small beads in the clay. Once a bead is found, move it into the palm of the hand. When 3 beads have been found remove them from the palm and start again.
• recycle an old plastic container like a margarine or pringles can. Cut a slot in the top. Have the child hold several buttons in one hand. Practice putting the buttons into the slot
• give the child a snack of a small food like raisins. Put the raisins in the child’s palm. Instruct the child to eat one raisin at a time moving the raisin from the palm to the fingertips to the mouth
• put coins in a piggy bank that are in the palm of your hand
• get coins out of a purse
• crumple up paper using one hand
• lace beads onto a string while holding the beads in the palm of the hand
• pick up small objects from a table with one hand only.

To cut with a pair of scissors, children require:

• postural stability
• hand strength and dexterity
• hand-eye coordination
• bilateral integration
• sensory integration
• sequencing
• and attention.

How you can help

How to help children get ready for cutting:

1) Ensure that you provide them with the correct scissor of an appropriate size.  Left-handed scissors are available for left-handed children.

2) Provide opportunities to engage with items that require an open/close motion of the hand.

3) Provide opportunities for tearing paper.

4) Place scissors in a “thumbs up” position from the very beginning. This means the thumb is in the little hole and is on top when cutting, rather than twisting the forearm inward and snipping with the thumb on the bottom.

5) Try using a visual cue to help the child understand proper hand positioning. If the child struggles with placing their thumb up when holding the scissors, you can place a sticker on their thumbnail or draw a little happy face on it.

You can also place a little sticker on top of the thumb hole of the scissors, or even wrap the top thumb hole with some electrical tape, masking tape, washi tape, etc.

6) Use hand-over-hand assistance if needed when getting started.

Opening scissors may be more challenging for beginners than closing them, especially if the scissors are too big for their hands or they have weakness in their hand.

They may need help opening them each time when starting out. If you help kids get their scissors into the open position over the play dough.

7) Try spring-loaded scissors if opening regular scissors creates too great a challenge or too much frustration.

8) Start out by snipping play dough, straws, crinkle paper.

9) Start with cutting on a wide line (around ½ inch thick) that’s just 2 to 3 inches long, then progress to circles, followed by corners and more complicated shapes.

10) It is easier to cut on cardboard paper as it offers more resistance and is easier to manipulate with the non-dominant hand. Small pieces of board or paper are also easier to manipulate than an A4 page.

11) Tell them exactly how many cuts or “chomps” they will make with their scissors.

12) Teach them that they need to “push” their scissors forward after each snip.

13) Place stickers along the path to provide additional visual guidance for where the scissors should go.

14) Make sure they are starting on the correct side of the shape. Righties need to start cutting on the right side of the shape (moving counterclockwise). Lefties need to start on the left side of the shape (moving clockwise).

15) Place stickers at the corners when cutting shapes with angles, and teach the child how to “STOP!” when their scissors cut the sticker.

These tips were originally published in the MamaOT.com article: Developmental progression of scissor skills: 35 best tips for teaching kids to use scissors.