Being an educator, I face frequent questions from parents about their child’s writing ability or rather the lack of writing ability.
The questions are like:
- My child doesn’t sit, or show interest for writing. He makes a lot of excuses.
- After writing a few letters my child starts complaining about hand pain, shoulder pain, finger pain, etc.
- My child knows all the letters but while writing, the letters come out very light or faint. He doesn’t use the crayon or pencil properly.
So many questions from the parents, quite natural too.... I can understand their frustration.
But, do the children really make excuses? Are they really trying to escape from the writing task?
As parents, we must first know why the child is trying to “escape” or “avoid”.
If your child is regularly complaining about hand pain, it clearly indicates that the child has a poor finger grip. This means, the way the child is holding the crayon or the pencil is not proper. This is because the finger muscles are not strong enough. Hence, when the child puts extra pressure on the pencil or crayon, his or her hand starts paining.
It leads to improper holding of the writing instrument. The letters come out very light or faint. They are not written properly as well. On top of that, we as parents ask the child to write the letters again and again as the writing is not good enough. This becomes too much for the child and finally, he or she gets tired. And, soon, he or she drops the crayon or pencil. Next thing you know, either the child is crying or he is hungry or has run away to play.
Some children also show the behaviour of not wanting to write again. They just want to avoid this task.
Then, we as parents start blaming the child and believe that the child is making “excuses”.
So, what should we do? What should we do to better the finger grip or to strengthen the finger muscles.
Don’t worry, there is a magic solution for this. This simple method will help your child discover the joy of creating master pieces using his fingers. For the worried parents, it would solve their immediate problem - they would be able to see the child not make fuss while writing.
This magic solution is to “Improve the fine motor skill”. So, what is fine motor skill? It is the ability of the child to do things by his small hands or fingers. In simpler terms, the child should be able to do activities using his small hands or fingers, without feeling too much pain.
You can help your child in improving his or her fine muscle growth through various activities. I will discuss 7 simple day to day activities which if done in a proper way can drastically better your child’s fine muscle growth.
1. Sensory play
Give your child different items which have different textures, such as, smooth, hard, fluffy, rough, soft etc. to touch and feel. You don’t have to do anything extra for this. Just give some Dal, Rice, Cotton, Shaving cream, Butter paper, Sand, Leaves, etc. Let the child hold it, touch, squeeze it. This will not only help the finger grip but also increase the child’s observation and thinking ability.
2. Life skills
Allow your child do some simple activities once the child is more than 2 and half years. For example, opening and closing bottle caps, folding or rolling a napkin or mat, spreading butter or jam on bread, Cleaning a toy, Using a cloth pin, Eating with spoon, Watering the plant, etc. These simple household activities not only help your child to be independent and helpful, but also build the fine muscle in the hands and fingers.
3. Educational toys
Kids love to play with toys. The commonly available toys at home like Legos, Toy cars, Dolls, Kitchen set, Balls, Soft toys – basically anything. Allow him or her to touch and play. In many preschools, various educational toys are used to make learning more interesting, for example, at NeoVva Kids, we use Puzzles with knobs, Magnetic boards, Hammering toys, Stacking toys and many more educational toys. These interesting equipments not only help the children to build their fine muscle, but also improve their imagination and hand-eye coordination.
4. Drawing
Giving a pencil directly to the child to write or draw on paper is not recommended. The child needs a prior preparation.
Give your child a thick chalk or pastel colour for free scribbling without any boundary. Once scribbling becomes easy for the child, then provide simple pictures to colour with crayons. These pictures help the kid to understand the concept of boundary. This will help bring the hand control. Let the child make different patterns on the paper like doodling, making lines or curves, etc. Make it more interesting by talking with your child about the drawing. Ask simple questions like What drawing? Why this drawing? Etc.
These are ways to improve the curiousness as well as thinking skills in your child.
5. Painting Activities
For art & craft work, in preschools, various painting techniques are used. For example at NeoVva Kids, we use simple methods like Q-tip painting, leaf and vegetable printing, spray painting, sponge dabbing, etc. These methods help apply gentle pressure on the small finger muscles, resulting in gradual growth.
6. Sticking activities
Sticking using glue helps put different amounts of pressure on thumb and index fingers, sometimes on the whole palm. These activities help the kids to strengthen their finger muscles. Different activities can be done such as a Collage work done using different materials like coloured paper, cloth pieces, wool pieces, sand, sawdust, chocolate wrappers, etc. You can also ask your child to create a beautiful collection using waste materials such as old newspapers cutting and glue.
7. Tracing activities
Tracing on different materials like semolina, sand, rice, sand paper or wooden carved letters really help the child to remember the letters and number patterns along with better fine muscle control. After that, the child should start crayon tracing on small dots with very little gaps on paper to form a drawing or a letter or a number. Once the finger control is gained, the child can be given the task to join dots with larger gaps.
This method is called pre-writing tracing. This is the most important pre-requisite before actual writing.
Once your child goes through the mentioned 7 different activities for fine muscle growth, he or she will be ready to write. Your preschool can give the child to write letters or numbers on big square line books initially. Once the child becomes comfortable, the child can move to writing in a four line or three line notebook.
In summary, fine muscle growth is very important before the actual writing process can be done. The discussed activities can assist the child to discover the joy of writing. This will also solve the homework issues.
Please put in your thoughts in the comments.