Helping Student Improve Motor Skills

Helping students improve gross and fine motor

skillsFirst Nation Student Success Program

Bimose Tribal Council

What’s ahead? Description of gross motor skills Gross motor activities Strategies 5 Minute movement breaks Fine motor skills Trouble with pencil skills What to do now?

What do motor skill dysfunction look like?

1. Poor sense of body position

2. Weak kinaesthetic sense

3. Inaccuracy of visual-spatial processing

4. Ineffective verbal-motor integration

5. Poor motor planning

What do motor skill dysfunction look like? (cont’d)

6. Poor coordination of muscle groups7. Motor memory weakness 8. Tone control weakness9. Poor monitoring

Famous people with difficulties with motor skills

What can we do?

acknowledge effort help the child build self-rewards focus on development build the motor skills use their strengths to enrich their

development

What do gross motor activities involve? Mobility Flexibility Balance

Coordination Endurance Core strength

Reminder!

Be safe! Open play space Peers to interact with Adult supervision Children acquire motor skills at

their own pace.

What do I want to do?Shoot a basket

Strategy: Break instructions up into steps

Have a plan about the actions.Plan: stand, look, throw ball

Did the plan work?Check: did the ball go into the hoop?

Try it out!Do: stand, look, throw ball

Strategies…

1. Participation over performance2. Outline boundaries3. Rules of the game4. Team Selection5. Discussion Time

In-class 5 Minute Movement Breaks

Silly Walks or Animal walks

Action Songs Stretches at the desk Following a line Simon says…

Small Motors Skills…

small muscle movements: those that occur in the finger, in coordination with the eyes.

ACTIVITY “Write your name”

Characteristics of students struggling with small motor skills

Printing and writing legibly.

Daily living Fatigue Disinterested

Pencil trouble: Shaky or uneven lines Scissor skills Pencil Grip Letter orientation Motor Skills

Give opportunities for performing fine motor tasks

Pencil grips Cats cradle Playdoe Paper, Rock,

scissors Finger sign

language: Alphabet

Referring Children to Occupational Therapy

Gross Motor functions

Adaptation Self-Care Hand-dominence Perceptual skills

Kenora Association for Community Living Nuala Reid 467-5225

The End

Resourceshttp://www.capitalhealth.ca/EspeciallyFor/OTOnHand/GrossMotorCoordination/default.htm

http://www.hwtears.com/educators/teachers