Handwriting II

There is so much that I can say about handwriting and getting ready to write.  One thing I'd like to bring your attention to is the importance of good posture with regards to handwriting.  Strength and stability is so important when it comes to handwriting.  And when I say strength, I'm really meaning back/shoulder and not just strength in the muscles of the hands.  Children develop from large muscles to small muscles, from trunk to extremities.  The way we talk about it in child development is that child develops from proximal to distal.  So if a child does not have strength and stability in their back, shoulders and neck, definitely their fine motor/handwriting is going to be effected.  When I notice that a child's fine motor isn't up to speed with the typical development of others their age I start backtracking and watching how they sit, what they are doing when there are fine motor tasks involved, what their willingness is when it comes to do tasks that require strength, their attitude and so on.  Often it all goes hand in hand.  I do not have the education and experience that an occupational therapist have...just a little background knowledge that allows me to be more aware of the development of the children and whether they need further intervention or not.  Recently I learned that "low muscle tone" is a common diagnosis which really is just a general label and often there are issues underlying that need to be dealt with.  In general,  I find that children that have a poor posture often steers clear of activities that require strength and endurance and I also notice that they fidget quite a bit and their attention span tends to diminish after a few moments with a task.  Often it's because they tire out quickly or are even sore and subconsciously they are making up for it in how they are sitting or what they are doing which then effects their ability to advance in the fine motor area and specifically handwriting.

One thing I do for children with that seem to be behind in this area is to start putting their work on a vertical surface.  This helps with strength and ability as well as pencil grasp.  One thing to watch for is if the child's wrist is bent back in the direction of the hand.  Very beneficial.  Dot to Dots work well.  Make sure your child is working from left to right and top to bottom.  Also stencil tracing can be fun and very helpful.

Already I mentioned doing activities like the wheelbarrow...these hand walking activities exercises the shoulders, hands, head and neck. 

Push-ups against the wall also help these areas.

Easel work is very beneficial.  Chalk board or writing on paper that has been put at your child's eye level also helps.  Magnet board or felt board also works nicely.  You can purchase large felt sheets at Wal-mart or craft stores.  Mount it at eye level and provide felt shapes or laminated pictures with felt pieces hot glued to the back.

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Two more areas that effect handwriting is ocular motor control and eye-hand coordination.  Those two will be for the next blog I guess, as time is passing.  Hope this next week goes smoothly for you all!

A Word about Handwriting

I thought this might be a good time to mention my thoughts on handwriting...since I just did a blog on fine motor/playdough.  I'm a big fan of playdough.  We have a playdough activity out weekly.  I know some programs that use to leave it out daily but I found that the children would lose interest and would eventually not choose that activity.  It's too beneficial not to be used!  So, for our own program, I pull it out once a week...twice at the most and those hands sure get a workout because they are always so excited to see it.  So, why am I a big fan?  Because the children naturally are working those muscles in their hands...strengthening the muscles and  helping them gain dexterity.  Really, that's the first thing that needs to take place before a child is expected to write.  Though we have many different writing tools available we use them mainly for exploration.  Actual "printing" tasks are not planned for a child until they are almost 4.5, or for some children, boys especially, 5 years old.  Of course, if a child shows readiness prior to that I will plan for it because my belief is we help each child take a step forward from where they are at.  I call it individualization and it's one thing I can truly provide in a home-based program because our group is always small.  However, back to handwriting, I've had very few children truly ready for printing prior to 4.5-5 years old.  One common reason for referral to an OT is often pencil grasp.  Often this is because we are expecting children to write with a pencil before they have the strength and dexterity...they develop an inappropriate pencil grasp.  And this brings me back to a comment I made in a past blog and that is...children play differently now a days and adults have higher expectations then in past days.  It doesn't always do well for the children.

Some activities that  helps children develop strength and dexterity:
* rolling playdough into balls.
* crumpling newspaper into balls.   I like to encourage them to do it with one hand.  Wow!  That works the muscles.  Then switch to the non dominant hand!  :-)  Stuff bags and make scarecrows/pumpkins/snowmen/sun etc.  You can even do a lot with lunch bags.  Hmmm...sounds like another post for the future.  Also, how about finger soccer.  Crumble a small piece of paper and then teach them how to flick it back and forth.
* water bottle sprayers or use dish soap/catsup containers for squirt bottles
* dice games
* using tweezers and tongs
* screws and screwdrivers
* eye droppers
* encouraging a child to turn over Memory or flash cards without sliding them to the edge of the playing area.
* stickers and window clings
* finger puppets
* silly putty
* stress balls
* finger push ups---pressing fingertips of each hand together and doing a "push-up".  This is a great activity to teach a child to do when they are "bored" but still have to sit patiently.  Goes along with twiddling thumbs.  :-)
* legos and other manipulative type toys.
* stacking blocks (inch cubes are the best for stacking!)
* allow a child to "play the piano" using their fingers (not whole hands!).  Even teach them a few songs if you wish!
* roll a ball of yarn or roll yarn/thick thread on a spool
* buttons/zippers and etc
* use a manual pencil sharpener (like we had in school!) vs. an electric one.
* use games that have keys to unlock doors or purchase several different types of locks and put into a basket.  Then provide them with the corresponding keys on one ring.
* teach your child how to cup their hands together to roll dice
* add a turkey baster to the tub toys
* pour water back and forth between two same size cups.
* include your child in cooking and baking. Stirring contents in a bowl/pan is a great hand strengthener!
* hammer!  Hammer eggshells, bubblewrap, tees into styrofoam and so on.
* children love pulleys-create a simple on outside for them to explore with.
* use sponges during water play
* crab walks, wheelbarrow (with you holding their legs and they walking on their hands)
* using hole punches
* opening lids on containers/jars
* let them help you carry the groceries in!  Heavy but manageable bags of groceries.
* paint bags- squirt two primary colors of paint inside of a freezer bag and tape shut.  Encourage the child to squish and manipulate the bag until it is one color.  An idea for the fall...but can be varied for any season/theme.  Use permanent marker to draw a pumpkin on the bag.  Then put red and yellow paint in opposite corners and encourage them to make the pumpkin orange.

Aaron was in a program where he came home with a daily coloring sheet or sheets.  Okay.   Every once in awhile...fine.  But come on!  Every day?  Hmmm....so had a little chat with them...for a couple reasons...one being that their art "projects" were not about creative art and I wanted to be reassured that they were not considering coloring pages artwork.  It's not.  My apologies to those how might be offended with that very plain comment "it's not!" :-)  Number two, I wanted to know their reasoning behind all the coloring sheets.  Seriously...that was the bulk of what he brought home...and that is not counting all the lovely daily puppets that were colored also.  (Puppets had their place but that's another story.)  I was told that the coloring pages promoted the children's fine motor development.  Okay.  Fine, but they did coloring with their puppets and that is sufficient for "required coloring".  There are so many different types of activities that can be done for fine motor development then coloring sheets.  But many "old-school" and some newer teachers often fall back on using coloring sheets (which can be very redundant for some children) because it's "easy" and does not take time to plan.  Please.  Take the time to plan non coloring activities and provide children with large blank paper the majority of the time and coloring pages/books only occasionally.  Thanks!  :-P

Well, this is getting long but I still have so much more to say!  Oh well, next post.  Have a good day!