Coordination Skills

Whether playing games, taking part in sport or doing schoolwork, coordination skills are important for your child.

Coordination usually refers to whether a child can get the arms and legs to work together in a coordinated, effective way.

In addition, many tasks which require coordinated movement also require the child to have good motor planning to time their movements accurately.

Bilateral Coordination Skills

Examples include jumping, skipping, cutting with scissors, using a knife and fork, and tying shoelaces.

The following pages on my site contain helpful info and photographed activities to help your child develop this skill:

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Hand Eye Coordination

Children need eye-hand coordination to guide their pencil between the lines and ensure their letters don’t go over the lines or touch each other.

Hand-eye coordination also forms the foundation for visual-motor integration, which helps kids learn to form letters and developflowing handwriting

The following pages on my site contain helpful info and photographed activities to help your child develop this skill:

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Helping Your Child Develop Coordination Skills

Helping your child work on his/her gross motor coordination abilities does not have to be too hard.

Just choose a couple of activities from the pages on my site, or from the wider selection in my e-books, and get started.

Give lots of encouragement and praise good attempts, even if they are not perfect. “You almost did it, well done!” “That was much better!” “Today is even better than yesterday!” “That was a good try!” My own kids love getting high fives to keep them motivated!

If your child struggles, then make it easier, or drop it, and try something different next time, coming back to the difficult activity in a week or two.

Look at your family’s daily routine and weekly routine. Each family is different and you need to decide what works best for you.

• Daily routine: is there a time of day when it is generally possible for you to focus on your child for 10 minutes? After breakfast if you homeschool? After a rest time in the afternoon? Between bath and bed? Can you make a 10-minute break in the homework routine in the afternoon? Are there any exercises you can make a regular part of family outings, family life?
  
  
• Weekly Routine: Which afternoon are you usually home without extra-mural activities? Or can you head for the playpark while you wait for your other child to finish extra-murals? What about Saturdays before chores?

Remember that incorporating gross motor exercises into your family’s life has wonderful long-term benefits! Look at other ways of improving your child’s general fitness levels and other gross motor skills, such as swimming, playing catch, cycling and walking on the beach.

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Related Pages

You may find these related articles helpful or interesting:

• This article by Teacher Support Force explains how Reading Skills could be improved through coordination games such as skipping! (Opens in a new page)
  
• Does Crawling Matter? MamaOT discusses the benefits of crawling. (Opens in a new page)
• Check out my Gross Motor E-Books below!
  

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