What Are Fine Motor Skills and Why Are They So Important?
If you’ve been looking at early learning centres for your jarjums or gundoos lately you’ve probably come across the phrase ‘fine motor skills’ quite a bit.
Lots of early learning programs include developing your little one’s fine motor skills in their list of everything they offer but what exactly are they promising here and why should you even care?
Fine motor skills are the ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands and wrists.
Sounds pretty basic right? Well that’s because it is.
For adults, who learned their fine motor skills over 20 years ago, these skills come to us pretty naturally. In fact we use them every single day to do key tasks in school, at work and in everyday life.
These small movements come so naturally to us that most of the time we don’t even think about them.
But fine motor skills are actually incredibly complex, involving a coordinated effort linking the brain and those muscles in our hands and wrists.
They’re built upon much larger gross motor skills that allow you (and your little one) to do all those big movements like running and jumping and having fun.
Fine motor skills are the same, but the difference is in the name. These are fine little movements that can be difficult for little hands and brains to develop.
We use fine motor skills to do things like holding pens or pencils, drawing picture or writing neatly, using a keyboard and using scissors, rulers or other tools. We also use them for everyday activities like brushing our teeth and getting dressed.
Fine motor skills start developing from when you’re a baby and keeping improving as you get older.
But people don’t all develop at the same pace. This is where an experienced and qualified early learning professional can help.
Our kindy staff have a strong understanding of the importance of fine motor skills, how to encourage their development and the kinds of skill milestones your jarjum should be reaching at each age.
They can also work with you to continue this skill development at home. This will ensure your jarjum is getting the very best start in life.