Preschool Gross Motor Activities
and School Readiness Skills

Did you know that preschool gross motor activities can develop school readiness skills?

Many parents think that gross motor skills enable a child to be good at sports. They are only partly right! Good gross motor skills can do so much more than that – they can influence a child’s ability to write well, to read well and even to concentrate in the classroom.

Let's have a look at what your child needs to do in the classroom, and how gross motor skills will help your child.

• Sitting quietly at a desk to work:
  When a child practices his gross motor skills, he develops the physical endurance he needs in order to sit at a desk for extended periods of time.
  Physical exercises can also help him to develop stability in his core muscles, which will help him to sit upright, and not slouch. Read this article on how muscle tone can affect postural control and postural stability.


• Listening to the teacher and following instructions:
  Taking part in sports, games and other preschool gross motor activities can help your child to learn to listen and follow instructions.


• Concentrating:
  The development of physical skills also helps your child to concentrate better in the classroom, as he will hopefully not need to wriggle around as much if his muscles are working well to keep him upright at the desk!


• Copying work from the board:
  Among other things, this task requires good visual tracking skills, which can be developed through selected gross motor games.


• Scissor cutting, drawing, coloring:
  You cannot control scissors or a pencil well when your muscles are “weak” or not working well together, so good shoulder girdle stability is a must. Carrying out gross motor tasks that include shoulder exercises should help to develop good scissor cutting skills and pencil control. Bilateral Coordination Skills will help your child to use both hands together properly, for example one hand needs to keep the paper still while the other hand draws or writes. And in scissor cutting, one hand holds the paper while the other hand cuts with scissors.


• Handwriting:
  An essential base for good handwriting is visual-motor integration (VMI) , which basically means that the eyes and hands have to work well together. Gross motor games can help to develop hand eye coordination to improve visual-motor integration.


• Correctly spacing the written work on the page:
  In order to effectively space the written work on the page, crossing the midline and directionality skills need to be established, as well as planning skills and body scheme as a base for spatial perceptual skills. Carrying out gross motor tasks can help to establish these skills. Games that establish the skills of directionality, midline crossing and left-right discrimination can also help to prevent letter reversals later.


• Reading:
  A child needs good visual tracking skills to read well. Gross motor games that develop hand-eye coordination can help develop these skills.


• Math:
  Basic numeracy in preschool and kindergarten can be reinforced by using rhythmical counting and skip counting during preschool gross motor activities.

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