Fine Motor, Visual Motor & Handwriting
Pre-writing skills are necessary skills that children need to develop before they are about to write. These skills influence the child to hold and manipulate writing utensils so they can draw, write, and color. An important aspect of pre-writing skills is pre-writing lines and shapes. These strokes include a vertical line, horizontal line, circle, plus sign, diagonal line, square, the letter "X" and a triangle.
Fine motor skills are essential to enable greater success for various childhood occupations including self-help/care activities, playing, and school-related tasks including coloring, writing, scissor skills, lacing, and grasping objects. These skills are the use of small muscles in the hands which in turn aid us in manipulating objects to do these tasks!
Visual perceptual skills are skills that enable a child to make sense of and interpret what they are seeing. This includes visual discrimination, figure-ground, spatial relationship, visual closure, and visual memory; to find the definitions of these check out our OT definitions tab! Children need these skills to be able to read and write. Activities you can do to practice these skills include playing ISpy games, doing puzzles, playing memory games, making patterns, and sorting objects!
Handwriting is a huge part of a child's school and academic performance. As therapists, we look at the child's posture, grip on the writing utensil, spacing, line placement, strength, and so much more. Some ways you can promote appropriate handwriting skills it to finger space between words and to break a crayon in half or use a small pencil to promote appropriate grip.