Motor skills are the abilities that allow us to perform a series of movements through the body and its different parts. and its different parts. In childhood, it develops exponentially and is very important for learning and the development of other functions.
We distinguish two types of motor skills: fine motor skills and gross motor skills. Fine motor skills are the most precise and difficult to execute, and have the greatest weight in the child’s cognitive development. In this article we will know what it consists of, its 4 fundamental characteristics and 4 activities to work on it, especially in the youngest children.
- Recommended article: “40 great questions for primary school children”.
Fine motor skills: what is it and how to work on it?
Before explaining what fine motor skills are, let’s see what motor skills are. Motor skills are the ability of the human body to perform movement. When we move voluntarily, we do so thanks to the central nervous system, muscles and joints.
Our brain receives the order to perform a certain movement and the nervous system executes it (this if we do not have any pathology that alters such functioning).
If we concretize more, and we speak of psychomotricity, we see that this integrates the psychological aspects in the movement.. Psychomotor skills play an important role in the maturation of the personality, in learning and in the discovery of the environment, especially in the infantile stage.
Motor skills -and psychomotor skills- evolve from the moment we are born, through different learning processes. Each child learns at his or her own pace different postures and movements (sitting, crawling, walking…) and perfects his or her movements (which become more complex and purposeful).
- You may be interested in: “Erik Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development”.
Now we are going to explain what types of motor skills exist, what fine motor skills consist of and how we can work on them to enhance them:
Types of motor skills
There are two types of motor or psychomotor skillsThere are two types of motor or psychomotor skills, fundamental for the child’s development. They are the following.
1. Gross motor skills
Gross motor skills are the first to appear in the child’s development. It involves an ability to perform large movements (for example: raising the arms). In this type of movement, the coordination of large muscle groups is important.
In addition, strength is more important here than precision. In fine motor skills, on the other hand, the opposite is true, as we will now see.
Fine motor skills
Fine motor skills develop a little later, as they are more precise and complex.
Thus, this type of motor skills (also called “fine psychomotor skills”) allows us to perform more precise and short movements (for example, following a dotted outline with a pencil, or grasping an object with the hand in a pincer grip position). The more the child develops, the better fine motor skills he or she has.
Characteristics of fine motor skills
As we have seen, fine motor skills encompass a type of precise movement, but not only that. Let’s look in a little more detail at the characteristics of this type of motor skills below.
1. It involves precise movements
The first characteristic of fine motor skills is the type of movements that can be performed: these are precise movements. Examples of this type of movement are: picking up cutlery, cutting out a figure on a piece of paper, writing, holding a pencil or pen, picking up a small object, threading a string with beads (making a bracelet), etc.
Logically, there are different degrees of precision in each of these movements.
2. Involves dexterity
Another characteristic of fine motor skills is that they require dexterity. That is why the youngest children still do not have it very developed, but little by little as they grow up they will enhance it.
3. It requires maturation
Fine motor skills is a type of motor skills that requires a certain level of maturity. That is, there must be a certain mental and physiological development for the child to start using fine motor skills.
4. Requires mastery and control
Another characteristic is that it requires mastery and control by the person, since the movements that allow the execution of fine motor skills are precise. This mastery and control must be located especially in the hands and arms.
How to work fine motor skills? 4 activities
Fine motor skills are very important in development because they allow the execution of movements that will later help to learn even more sophisticated and important functions for learning (for example, performing the digital pincer grasp [with the fingers] will allow graphomotor skills (graphic movement of the hand for writing).
Thus, has a very important weight for the child’s psyche and for the evolution of his cognitive and intellectual abilities, among others.among others.
Let’s see some activities to work this type of motor skills. Obviously, we can adapt them according to the age of the child. Some of these exercises can also be used with adults who have lost the ability to perform fine motor movements as a result of an accident or brain damage (e.g. a stroke).
1. Clothespins for hanging clothes
An activity that can be done with children to improve their fine motor skills is to take clothespins to hang clothes from a bowl or container and place them (making the clamping gesture) on a surface (for example, on the edges of a box).
This is a good way to strengthen the index finger, middle finger and thumb. In addition, they should use precision, by measuring the exact force that they must do at the moment of pressure to open the clamp.
2. Bottles with screw caps
Another possible activity is to use screw-on bottle caps. The children can screw and unscrew them on and off the bottle. You can use colored bottles and caps (each cap is screwed and unscrewed on the bottle that corresponds to it), or mix colors and have to sort them, etc..
Thus, in addition to working on fine motor skills, matching and color discrimination are worked on.
3. Chopsticks and spice jars
In this game we would use chopsticks and spice jars (the small and narrow ones). The objective of the child will be to introduce the chopsticks into the holes of the spice pot. This exercise is ideal for working on precision. A tip is to use cinnamon spice jars, since their holes are the right size for the chopsticks.
4. Bracelets or bead chains
In this exercise we need thread and beads. You can use different materials (thicker or thinner thread, different types of beads…) according to the level of motor skills of the child and his age. Thus, the child must insert the beads (e.g. beads) one by one on the thread to finally make a bracelet (or a simple bead chain). It is ideal for working on precision.
5. Kitchen tongs
In this game to work on fine motor skills we will use: kitchen tongs (long and wide), marbles or pompoms (or any object that can be easily grasped with the tongs) and some containers (3 or 4). The objective will be to pick up the marbles one by one (or the object in question) and move them from one container to another.
They can hold the tweezers with one hand or with two, since the muscles of the hands and fingers will be worked either way. Different colors can be used for the containers and marbles so that they also work on matching and color discrimination.