Poor Fine Motor Skills:
OT Mom's Advice

From Sandra, Australia:
I have just been informed by my 6 year old's teacher that he has still not developed his fine motor skills and she suggests that I take him to an OT. His teacher also says that it takes him a second to think when asked to put his left or right hand forward. I was shocked to know that my child may have a problem.

Do you think it will be good if he repeats prep again or will he develop his fine motor skills as he grows?

OT Mom's Response:
I am sure you feel very upset about being told that your son is having difficulties, it is never easy to find that out. However, it is good that his poor fine motor skills have been picked up early in his school career.

I would recommend that you go for the OT appointment and have your son assessed to see what the root cause is of his fine motor delays, as well as his slow recognition of left and right.

In my experience, children who already have delayed fine motor skills won't "grow out" of them. They may develop ways of compensating for them, but this is tiring and inefficient, especially when we want their energies to be focused on loving learning, and not struggling to hold a pencil and write properly.

You will find some helpful fine motor activities on this site to help you to assist your son, but I definitely recommend an OT evaluation to get to the root of it. Read my article on the essential foundations of fine motor development to understand more about this.

Repeating prep year is a very big decision based on various areas of school readiness. However, even if the decision is made for him to repeat prep, it will not enable his fine motor skills to mature if the root causes are not addressed.

From Concerned Mom:
My five year old son is not in Kindergarten yet but is struggling with fine motor skills.

He hates writing and even when I try to get him to trace things his lines are shaky and he gets frustrated. It is hard for him to make a ball or roll a snake with playdough. And scissors are a nightmare!

I am wondering if I should get him evaluated by an OT so they can work on things before Kindergarten. Or if I should just give it time?

OT Mom's Response:
I'm sorry to hear of your son's difficulties. At this age, he really should not be experiencing those levels of frustration with classroom tasks.

I would definitely want to see if he can be helped ASAP, so that by the time he starts Kindergarten, he can concentrate on learning and not be distracted by his frustration with fine motor tasks.

I would really recommend that you see an OT, who can help get to the bottom of his poor fine motor skills and help you address them as soon as possible. If you have a long waiting period for an appointment, why not try my inexpensive Fine Motor E-Books, which will help you work on fine motor skills with your son in a non-threatening way - most activities don't use a pencil and help to build up hand and finger strength and dexterity in a fun way.

I hope that helps! I really believe that if a child is showing frustration at not being able to do what peers are doing, we should step in and help.

Before your child can hold a pencil to write, the hand and finger muscles need lots of practice to develop the strength and coordination needed.

As one wise teacher wrote in an anonymous response to a parent on my site:

"All children will struggle with fine motor skills if they have not been actively using their fingers and hands for activity. Almost all the "hands on" things you need to fix this are in your home. Stringing beads with pipe cleaners, screwing on nuts and bolts, placing small objects in egg cartons (also helps with one-to-one correspondence), playing with play dough, working with Legos, and any other activity that uses the fingers.

This cannot ever be learned with a phone app or computer.

Please develop these fine motor skills with those objects BEFORE you introduce the pencil. Otherwise is would be like trying to add before you can count.  I am a preschool teacher and we are seeing so much of this with the popularity of phones."

I highly recommend you take a look at my page about the foundation of fine motor skills, and then take a look at these simple, fun activities for strengthening the hand and finger muscles (with lots of photos to show you exactly what I am talking about!)

From Wendy, Queensland:
I have been told today that my 5 y.o is having trouble with Fine Motor Skills. I had asked for his teacher to maybe give him extra help as he seems to be struggling with his reading and letter word recognition.

She said his writing/drawing is shaky and has trouble with pencils, cutting etc. What I don't understand is what is the difference with these skills and fiddly things i.e those fiddly little Lego men, shoe laces etc. which he has no problem with.

My issue was with his sight words (he just doesn't seem to get it) but they seem to think its Fine Motor Skills and think going to an OT may help. Any advice please. He will be 6 in January.

OT Mom's Response:
Often parents wonder what the difference is between the fine motor skills needed for handwriting, and the ability to play with "fiddly things" like Lego and computer games/Playstations.

To hold and use a pencil properly, the thumb, index and middle fingers (the tripod fingers) need to grip the pencil and then move together to control the pencil with minimum effort. Not all kids' toys and games get those tripod fingers to work together well. In addition, kids with poor fine motor skills tend to use their fingers stiffly or awkwardly even in play. Then when they have to use their fingers for handwriting, they struggle.

So, on the one hand, getting kids to actively use their hands in play does generally develop their hand strength and dexterity; but when kids have some fine motor delays, then the toys don't get their finger muscles to move as well as they should. I wrote a page about why some "fine motor toys" might not actually help develop kids' fine motor skills.

An OT would be able to evaluate your son's overall fine motor skills and assess whether there is a need for intervention. Some kids just need a boost.

The other issue is the reading/sight words that you are concerned about. It sounds like the teacher did not hear your concerns properly - perhaps because her overriding concern was for the fine motor skills. If it were me, I would make an appointment with the OT, then go back to the teacher and let her know you have made the appointment, and then bring up the reading issues again. Where I work, the OTs include visual perceptual skills such as visual memory for sight words etc, in their overall assessment of the child, so you could also raise your concerns about your son's reading with the OT.

From April, Michigan:
I just got a call from my son's Kindergarten teacher saying that she is concerned with his Fine Motor Skills. She says that he is struggling with his writing and gets frustrated easily and wants to give up. He does not feel confident enough and he is not good at all with the scissors. Sometimes when I try to work with him at home, he gets frustrated with me too.

He is left handed and he JUST turned 5 in Sept. A lot of these kids in his class are older than him. I just feel bad for him and do not want him to become so frustrated that he doesn't want to go to school.

There are some great resources/ideas on this website that I printed out and took home. I can't wait to get started. His left-handed scissors are in transit to be delivered to our home this week so we can get going on the cutting too. Thanks so much!

OT Mom's Response:
Those calls from the teacher often come as a huge shock - I can sympathize! You are doing the right thing in looking for ways to help him!

Your son is still young, and boys are sometimes slower to mature in fine motor skills as well as other school skills. And being left-handed in a right-handed world can also contribute to some delays in developing fine motor skills. So persevere with lots of fun games that don't feel like "work".

• Well done on getting him left-handed scissors. They do make a difference in helping lefties develop their fine motor skills. And working on his scissor cutting skills is a good idea, as a precursor to developing his pencil control skills.
• If you want your son to practice letter formations and numbers without getting frustrated by his poor fine motor skills, then check out my fun letter formation activities.
• If he needs to work on forming words / spelling, then check out this page on practicing spelling without pencil-and-paper.

Well done on being a proactive parent and helping your child in the early years of school! Keep up the good work!

From Sarah, England:
My child is on a IEP at school. She is now seven but i have seen no improvements since she was five. She has great difficulty with writing and also maths skills. Her teacher said she needs to improve her fine motor skills.

How do I know if she has got a development delay or not? Is there any where i can go out of school for help?

Her teacher said she gets tired a lot and sometimes finds things difficult. My child has got some special needs but i don't know what. Where do I go for help?

OT Mom's Response:
I am not based in the UK, so am not familiar with their system of referral, but I asked an OT friend over there, and she says you would need to be referred to a community paediatric occupational therapist by your GP or other health professional.

Depending on where you live and the availability of OT’s there may be different criteria for OT waiting list/referral system. Otherwise, you could approach a private occupational therapist for an assessment. The availability of private OT’s will depend on where you live.

My OT friend says that the best starting point is your GP or Health Visitor. They generally act as gate keepers to all the therapies/specialists.

Hope that helps. I think once your daughter has been evaluated, you will have a better idea of how to go about helping her.