If you’re privileged to have a thriving preschooler, consider yourself blessed! They love to discover in their protective environment while growing exponentially in their physical bodies and learning abilities. If your child has been practicing his fine motor development, it may be time for handwriting fine motor skills activities!
Is My Child Ready for writing?
But, at what age is your child ready to start writing? While every child is different, many children tend to recognize letters around the ages of 3 and 4. If they recognize letters and have an interest in writing their name, it may be time to start teaching letter formation now. That way, you can stop bad writing habits before they begin.
Activities to Improve Fine Motor Skills and Handwriting
If your child does not seem to have the hand-eye coordination or dexterity to start writing, you may want to find ways to develop fine motor skills. There are several ways to strengthen small muscle movements, and I have plenty of easy to follow fine motor resources for you to enjoy and implement today!
Not only will you find how why fine motor practice is important, you’ll discover what useful activities to improve fine motor skills and handwriting. You’ll find fine motor ideas like cutting using scissors, practicing pincer grasp, pencil grip, and more! with Start here to read about these key fine motor skills examples you can begin immediately.
Occupational Therapy Fine Motor Skills
However, if you’re concerned with your child’s readiness to write, your child may need some extra time or a little help. If you’ve talked to an occupational therapist, you may have heard the words fine motor strength and dexterity. But, what does occupational therapy fine motor skills mean and does it involve children?
Yes, it does involve children — but let’s discuss what is occupational therapy first. This type of therapy focuses on helping people become more independent with most types of physical, sensory, or cognitive struggles. This can be an adult or a child. Occupational Therapy (OT) can help kids improve their cognitive, physical, sensory, and all motor skills if the need arises.
Yet, the good news is most children just need time and practice to get their fine motor skills fine-tuned! And, we’ve got a ton of help with handwriting worksheets to share with you today.
Handwriting Fine Motor Skills Practice
Since fine motor skills can refer to the hand coordination with fingers, let’s focus on that particular area. For example, fine motor activities involving this small muscle group include using writing utensils, cutting with scissors, building with legos, buttoning, tying shoelaces, and of course, handwriting.
If your child is getting a lot of fine motor practice in these critical areas, it may be time to start handwriting practice. You’ll want to begin with teaching your child his or her name in the correct way. So, it’s a perfect time to introduce the alphabet or ABCs!
Fine Motor Alphabet Letters Maze
The Fine Motor Alphabet Mazes is a multi-sensory, hands-on activity pack focusing on the entire 26 letter alphabet. It includes 26 Alphabet Maze worksheets for just a handful of dollars.
Your Preschooler, Kindergartener or even First Grader will learn their beginning letter sounds with uppercase and lowercase letters including visually stimulating pictures. And, of course, your child(s) will practice handwriting skills while enjoying the challenge of navigating through mazes.
How to Use Fine Motor Alphabet Letters Maze
Immediately after your child solves the Fine Motor Alphabet Mazes, students should read the picture clues aloud using sentence format like “B is for Ball”. Then, try practicing the letter sound as they write; “A says aaaaa, B says buh”. It’s that simple — it’s an immediate download, the cost is affordable (amazingly!), and your child will learn the correct letter formation.
No matter what stage your child is in, have fun and enjoy this time together. Whether you realize it or not, they are learning and building fine motor skills just by exploring their world, even picking up toys. We can give them the advantage to prepare them for handwriting skills, but only when they are ready.
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