About the Going to Kindergarten Club

Research

Early fine motor writing skills are more and more being recognized as an important school readiness skill associated with later academic success (Carlton and winkler, 1999: Dinehart and Manfra, 2013; Feder and Majnemer, 2007: Grissmer et al., 2010; Jackman and Stagniti, 2007; Rosenblum et al., 2003; Son and Meisels, 2006; Sortor and Kulp, 2003). Many public school systems took away individualized handwriting lessons in the past decade, which may also account for the increase in referrals for handwriting related problems to occupational therapists. In addition, few teachers feel prepared to teach handwriting (Graham et al., 2008). In 2003, Marr et al. reported that children in a preschool setting spent about 37% of their day engaged in fine motor activities and only 10% of those activities involved paper and pencil. In kindergarten, the shift to using handwriting during the day was significant. Kindergarteners spent nearly half their day engaged in fine motor skills and of that amount, 42% was spent on paper and pencil tasks (Marr et al., 2003). Even before a child enters elementary school, the current literature finds that developing “handwriting readiness” may be beneficial because it 1) supports the development of reading skills (James and Engelhardt, 2012; Longcamp et al., 2005) and 2) it may increase the likelihood of academic success in later year.

References:

Graham S, Harris KR, Mason L, et al. (2008) How do primary grade teachers teach handwriting? A national survey. Reading & Writing 21(1–2): 49–69.

Carlton MP and Winsler A (1999) School readiness: The need for a paradigm shift. School Psychology Review 28: 338–352.

Dinehart LHB and Manfra L (2013) Association between early fine motor develop- ment and later math and reading achievement in early elementary school. Early Education and Development 24(2): 138–161.

Feder K and Majnemer A (2007) Handwriting development, competency, and intervention. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology 49(4): 312–317.

Grissmer DW, Grimm KJ, Aiyer SM, et al. (2010) Fine motor skills and early com- prehension of the world: Two new school readiness indicators. Developmental Psychology 46: 1008–1017.

Jackman M and Stagnitti K (2007) Fine motor difficulties: The need for advocating for the role of occupational therapy in schools. Australian Occupational Therapy Journal 54(3): 168–173.

James KH and Engelhardt L (2012) The effects of handwriting on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends in Neuroscience and Education 1(1): 32–42.

Longcamp M, Zerbato-Poudou MT and Velay JL (2005) The influence of writing practice on letter recognition in preschool children: A comparison between hand- writing and typing. Acta Psychologica 119(1): 67–79.

Marr D, Cermak S, Cohn ES, et al. (2003) Fine motor activities in Head Start and kindergarten classrooms. American Journal of Occupational Therapy 57: 550–557.

Rosenblum S, Epsztein L and Josman N (2008) Handwriting performance of children with attention deficit hyperactive disorders: A pilot study. Physical & Occupational Therapy in Pediatrics 28: 219–223.

Son SH and Meisels SJ (2006) The relationship of young children’s motor skills to later reading and math achievement. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 52: 755–778.

Sortor JM and Kulp MT (2003) Are the results of the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration and its subscales related to achievement test scores? Optometry and Vision Science 80: 758–763.