Can I give you a resounding YES!! Fine Motor Skills are vital in all of life. Much of early learning is done to develop fine motor skills. I think of fine motor skills as strength and control in a person's hands. Why is this important? Fine motor development includes learning to cut using scissors. It includes being able to pick up small items like small beads and string them. All kinds of lacing activities help develop fine motor skills.
Many self care activities require hand strength, control and coordination. Clothes fasteners come in many varieties but they demand fine motor skills. I remember buying only Wrangler and Gap brand jeans for several years. Why those brands? Well, Gap jeans had a fastener that resembled a large hook and eye and it was easy to close with his weak fine motor skills. The Wrangler jeans had a snap that required less strength to close than most other brands. It was a huge accomplishment when he was able to button the the metal buttons on Levi's. Another dressing issue involved learning to tie shoes. I can't remember how many years it took but it was a long and frustrating process. In the early days of preschool, it took our son a lot of practice to get his coat zipped by himself, a hat on and mittens. We didn't do gloves for years as these required more fine motor ability than mittens..so mittens won out. This covers some of the harder dressing skills but all dressing skills require fine motor skills. It is an area that takes a mom who is patient and understanding of just how hard this is for your child. The day that you put away everything that has a velcro closures is time for a party at your house, OH yeh!!
Art projects require and develop fine motor skills. Some of the best materials are, lacing beads and lacing. Using large kids tweezersc to pick up small objects like Pom poms. Any sorting or pouring activities are great. Painting, coloring, cutting, tearing, pasting, tracing, drawing, rolling and using molds with playdoh all are great activities. Using moldable items like wiki sticks is another approach. It's beneficial to play with lots of messy sensory based materials like rice, beans, goop and a host of things where fine motor skills are used during play. They all help get these skills in place before the child begins handwriting.
I remember how laborious hand writing was for my son. He often pushed too hard with the pencil and you guessed it, he would break the lead in his pencil. He was perfectionistic so he erased a lot of his first try. One problem, he erased so hard that the paper tore. Thus, it was ruined especially since he was a perfectionist. There were many meltdowns as this was a very common scenarios Fine motor skills are so essential for handwriting. Every aspect of the handwriting proces demands different fine motor skills.
Suggestions for ways to develop these skills: play with your child during fine motor activities. It may take a lot of modeling and encouragement to do some of the activities but your child is likely to avoid these if you don't take time to do it with your him. In turn, he probably will continue to avoid these. A parent who is patient and relentless and slowly exposes the child to new things and uncomfortable activities will help him be more successful in lots of areas in life.
Posted with Blogsy