What are Perceptual Motor Skills, And How do I Help my Kid Get Them? Part II

harlemglobetrotters.com

In an earlier post, "What are Perceptual Motor Skills and How Do I Get my Kid Some?" I gave an overview of what perceptual motor skills are, how they impact daily in our lives, and how to help promote them.

Perceptual motor skills refer to our ability to coordinate constant input and feedback between our eyes - brain - and muscles as we plan, coordinate and effectively carry out specific activities such as moving, walking, running, skipping, eating, working, writing, keyboarding, texting, driving, playing, etc.

I've gotten a lot of wonderful inquiries and feedback (thank you all), and devote this post to discussing the differences between gross motor skills, fine motor skills, and  grapho-motor skills - which correspond to different muscle groups and therefore to different types of perceptual motor skills, all of which we rely daily from birth to death.

Our development of perceptual motor skills begins at birth, and while there are developmental milestones doctors, psychologists, health providers and teachers will refer to, kids develop these skills at different rates.  IF you are concerned about your own child's skills, ask these professionals for guidance.  However, the best way to develop these skills is to practice them and consciously pay attention to the feedback you get when practicing.  Feedback refers to how successful each element of the practice was at achieving the target goal- the strength used, the grip used, the extension used, etc.

From: www.greatvoice.com

How to help kids develop perceptual motor skills: Different activities engage different types of muscle groups and as a result different muscles and brain centers are responsible for coordinating eye-brain-hand/foot/mouth/body responses.  

• ALL percpetual motor skills develop at slightly different paces although experts have set 'normal' developmental milestone limits, and 
• ALL development involves practice in use and recognizing and understanding motor feedback (how effective different movements are at achieving a target goal).

From: blog.virtualworldfitness.net

FINE MOTOR SKILLS involve coordinating the use of small muscle groups (typically in the fingers, hands, wrists, feet, toes, lips and tongue)  in tasks such as buttoning, sewing, eating, beading, painting, drawing, tying shoe laces, or grabbing something with your thumb and forefinger. Note that fine motor skills, while integrating eye-brain-hand feedback, are not responsible for handwriting (which falls under graph-motor skills - more details below).

What you can do to help kids develop fine motor skills:

• PRACTICE, practice, practice.  Start with simplified, large materials and gradually move to smaller/heavier/narrower objects.
• Play with legos and blocks- starting with the larger pieces and gradually integrate and move to the smaller ones;
• Beading - start with large beads and once mastered, bead with smaller and smaller objects;
• Bow tying - you may want to start with thick yarn or thick tying materials on dolls, large books and gradually move to thinner and thinner tying materials such as laces.
• Make play-dough together, mixing the flour, water, salt, by hand and choosing your own colors.  Making it requires kneading which is EXCELLENT fine motor practice for all kinds of hands.
• For younger kids, there are wonderful fine-motor books you can make or buy where you can read the book and have your child practice buttoning, tying, sewing, playing with zippers, etc. These are great because the practice element is built in and is fun!
• For kids with weak oral/mouth/tongue coordination, practice making sounds placing the tongue in different locations. Note the difference sounds depending on the placement of tongue and lips.
• Squeezing squeezy toys can help kids develop stronger grips and hand muscles.

 For more information on fine motor skills please read:

• Children's Health: Fine motor skills (this site defines fine motor skills, charts developmental milestones in fine motor development, defines key terms, common problems, possible parental concerns, fine motor development tests, and resources).
• 50 Fine motor activities for children
• More fine motor for children
• Fine motor development 0-6 Years

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS involve coordinating the use of large muscle groups involved in motor activities that involve large movements such as crawling, walking, running, jumping, balancing, dancing, most sports.

What you can do to help kids develop gross motor skills:

• PRACTICE, practice, practice.  Start with simplified, large materials and gradually move to smaller/heavier/narrower objects. Also, for those with weak gross motor skills, have them practice in the privacy of their home/room where they won't fall victim to possible ridicule and/or embarrassment.
• Play ball, practice throwing and catching.  Start with large, soft balls and gradually decrease their size and weight
• Teach your child how to skip which involves stepping and hopping.  Break down the skipping movements and exaggerate them at first, refining the movements gradually.
• Practice balance by walking on wide lines or tiles and gradually trying to walk on narrower lines.
• Play games like Simon Says and Mother May I

 For more information on gross motor skills please read:

• Children's Health: Gross motor skills (this site defines gross motor skills, charts developmental milestones in gross motor development, defines key terms, common problems, possible parental concerns, gross motor development tests, and resources).
• Helping children develop gross motor skills

GRAPHOMOTOR SKILLS involve highly specialized coordination between eye-hand-finger movements used for writing, and writing only. [Drawing, interestingly enough falls under fine-motor skills.] More specifically, graphomotor skills include how to effectively hold a pencil so the hand doesn't tire, muscle movements needed to shape letters, and kinesthetic feedback necessary to monitor progress when writing making sure the letters look like they're supposed to, that the ink or pencil lead is not too weak or too strong, and that there is just the right space between letters and words so others can read them (whether they are in print or script).

What you can do to help kids develop graphomotor skills:

• PRACTICE, practice, practice. 
• Have your child practice handwriting - first with a large pencil and large lined paper, gradually using thinner pencils and more narrowly spaced lines.
• Grips help some kids but not all of them.  Furthermore, there are different types of grips and you may want to experiment.
• Make sure students have enough space on math sheets and worksheets to comfortably fill in the required response.

 For more information on graphomotor skills please read:

• Graphomotor Skills: Let's Talk Writing - discusses what kids with weak graphomotor skills look like, factors that effect handwriting, strategies and accommodations for kids with poor handwriting,
• Handwriting and dysgraphia
• Understanding spelling errors
• Graphomotor Skills:  Why some kids hate to write
• Tips for improving handwriting

Thank you all so much for your visit.  Please leave your thoughts, ideas and perceptual motor strategies in the comments below.

Dumbing Down and Demanding Less...Really?

"A 1990 survey of college seniors showed 42% couldn't  name the dates of the War Between the States to within half a century." - Dumbing Down Our Kids by Charles Sykes

"A typical American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra... Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I've found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn't... " - Andrew Hacker, professor emeritus Queens College

DILEMA: Too many schools and educators are demanding less of our students.

Here are three current examples of the dumbing down of America- one in English, one in history, and one in math:

EXAMPLE #1: William Chase in The Decline of the English Department (2009) notes that many schools core requirements are neglecting critical reading and are taking the passion out of books and liberal arts. As a result the relevancy and pursuit of English writing and classical reading are quickly dropping. Hopefully the Common Core Standards across content areas will help.

***

EXAMPLE #2: In a Wall Street Journal Weekend Interview (6/18/11) Don't Know Much About History  popular author and historian David McCullough responds to the Department of Educations release that week of the 2010 National Assessment of Educational Progress which found that only 12% of high-school seniors had a firm grasp of American history:

Image by Ken Fallin

"We're raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate...One problem is personnel...People who come out of college with a degree in education and not a degree in a subject are severely handicapped in their capacity to teach effectively...Another problem is method. History is often taught in categories - women's history, Africa American history, environmental history - so that many of the students have no sense of chronology...What's more, many textbooks have become so politically correct as to be comic. Very minor characters that are currently fashionable are given considerable space, whereas people of major consequence farther back [such as] Tomas Edison are given very little space or none at all...and they're so badly written.  They're boring!

McCullough's solution:

...talk about history, talk about the books we love, the biographies and histories... take our children to historic places...and teach history with 'the lab technique'[giving] students a problem to work on. If I were teaching a class I would tell my students, 'I want you to do a documentary on the building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street [The New York Public Library]. Or I want you to interview Farmer Jones or a former sergeant Fred or whatever...I'd take one of the textbooks. I'd clip off all the numbers on the pages. I'd pull out three pages here, two pages there, five pages here - all the way through. I'd put them aside, mix them all up, and give them to you and three other students and say, 'Put it back in order and tell me what's missing.' You'd know that book inside out.

[Please see my recent post for great non-fiction/ history reading suggestions.]

 ***

Image by Adam Hayes

EXAMPLE #3: (7/29/12) New York Times Opinion piece (see quote above) Is Algebra Necessary by Andrew Hacker (professor emeritus political science, Queens College, City University of New York) illustrates dumbing down all too clearly and painfully as he advocates removing algebra from the 'required' high school curriculum because

To our nation's shame, one in four ninth graders fail to finish high school... Most of the educators I've talked with cite algebra as the major academic reason.

His suggestion:

Instead of investing so much of our academic energy in a subject that blocks further attainment for much of our population, I propose that we start thinking about alternatives. Thus mathematics teachers at every level could create exciting courses in what I call 'citizen statistics'...it would familiarize students with the kinds of numbers that describe and delineate our personal and public lives.

***

How in good conscience can or should we dumb down the curriculum because students are failing? My suggestions:

• Much like McCullough talks about teaching history in a 'lab technique' so too should math be taught as meaningful projects and 'thinking playgrounds' (see Lockhart's Lament ) and not as wrote formula memorizing.  Algebra lends itself to this kind of study - even Hacker notes algebra is used in airline ticket pricing, animated movies and investment strategies - let's teach using these meaningful examples as algebraic 'labs'.
• Many are failing high school algebra because they have not mastered long addition and multiplication.  We must make sure our students have mastered the basics.
• Eliminating algebra or making it optional will restrict math-phobics (who opt out of algebra) from many careers. It also models a 'cop-out' strategy - something we definitely do not want to teach or reinforce.  High school students are not ready to make those decisions nor are they ready to be hindered from such consequences. Instead we must teach to various learning styles while raising (not lowering) demands and expectations.

Under no circumstance should we remove algebra because students fail.  We need to raise not lower the bar and we must strive to meet expectations not eliminate them. Many are hopeful that the Common Core Standards will help. 

The bottom line: Stop the dumbing down of our students.  Raise the bar don't eliminate it because it's hard or because kids fail.  Observe WHY they fail and address student needs (are they visual or verbal learners, do they have short attention spans - teach in shorter 'bits', use teaching multiple modes and examples of a particular content), but don't eliminate algebra or educational options because they're too challenging.

And while I mean no insult to Miss South Carolina Teen (who I am sure was incredibly nervous when responding to her question which probably effected her response), we certainly don't want to raise inarticulate students who can't locate US States, or recall when the War of the States occurred. And, if we were to follow Dr. Hacker's suggestions - would we make geography and map-reading optional?

What do you think?

 Thanks for your visit and please share your perspectives in the comments.