Motor Skills

• Motor skills do not develop in isolation.

• The skills that emerge in early childhood build on the achievements of infancy and toddlerhood.

• Motor coordination in childhood tends to be a relatively stable trait over time.

• Motor coordination has also been associated with both childhood and adolescent levels of physical activity.

Gross Motor Development

• As children’s bodies become less top-heavy, their center of gravity shifts downward:

  • Improves balance

  • Paves the way for new motor skills

• Upper- and lower-body skills combine into more refined actions

• Changes in ball-throwing and catching skills illustrate preschoolers’ gross-motor progress

• Three-year-olds have the highest activity level of any age in the life span.

• Preschoolers motor capabilities greatly advance, more coordinated, integrated

  • At age 3, enjoy simple movements such as hopping, jumping, and running back and forth.

  • At age 4, become more adventurous and begin climbing down as well as up.

  • At age 5, runs hard, more adventurous, may try ‘daredevil’ stunts

Fine Motor Skills

• Fine motor skills are also developing.

• At age 3, children show a more mature ability to place and handle things than they did as infants.

• At age 4, coordination is improved and more precise.

• At age 5, hand, arm, and body all move together under better command of the eye; and the child seeks more complex activities.

• Fine-motor skills take a giant leap forward in the preschool years

• Self-help skills:

  • At age 3, children show a more mature ability to place and handle things than they did as infants.

  • By age 4 to 5, dress and undress without supervision

  • By age 4, adept with a fork; by age 5, can use a knife to cut soft foods

• Drawing:

  • Scribbles begin during the second year

  • First representational forms appear around age 3

  • More realistic drawings are done at ages 5 and 6

  • Drawing skills vary across cultures

Implications

• Poor motor coordination has been associated with an increased risk of obesity or overweight in children in what is likely to be a reciprocal relationship.

• Gains in fine motor skills allow young children to take more responsibility.

  • Helps with attention and concentration , creative problem solving

• Movement gets the brain going. An active body makes for an active brain

• Parents and teachers can help by:

  • Make learning an active affair - opportunities for movement activities

  • Providing safe equipment to jump and climb

  • Offering gentle coaching and encouragement