Methodical manual "Development of fine motor skills in children through finger games"

Fine motor skills - what is it and how does it affect the child’s condition?

Imagine picking up a tennis ball and a grain of rice. Agree, it’s much easier and faster to grab the ball: close your fingers and you’re done. Whether it’s raising a small grain, you need to get used to it, pick up and hold this crumb.

It's all about physiology . The human hands are equipped with a large number of muscles, both large and small. We train large muscles every time we make any movements with our hands and fingers. But small muscles “rest” and do not develop until we begin to make small and precise manipulations.

Give a baby a coin - he will clutch it in his palm, no matter how interesting it is to him. But a four or five year old child will be able to pick it up with his fingers and carefully examine it. This simple difference is the effect of developed fine motor skills.

So, fine motor skills are the degree of development of the small muscles of the hands, which are used for precise and small movements. Then why develop it?

The excitement around fine motor skills began quite a long time ago, when M. Montessori, V.A. Sukhomlinsky, A.R. Luria discovered an interesting relationship: children with delayed speech development could not work with small objects, while children with a normal level of development actively used them.

This discovery became an impetus for other research in the fields of psychology, pedagogy and physiology. As a result, it was discovered that the accuracy of performing small manipulations is associated with the work of the speech parts of the brain, consciousness, thinking, spatial orientation, memory and vision.

Accordingly, by working on a child’s fine motor skills, you not only develop small hand muscles, but also train his brain, use the visual, skeletal, muscular, and nervous systems. Not a bad bonus for a caring parent, right?

Finger games

“Finger” games are a kind of dramatization of some stories, most often rhyming, using fingers. You can start playing such games even up to one year, and then continue, slightly complicating your finger movements. You can play until the end of primary school age.

Most of these games involve the use of two hands, thanks to which children begin to understand what “down”, “up”, “left”, “right”, etc. are. To obtain the greatest effect, these finger exercises must be structured in such a way that tension, relaxation, clenching and unclenching of the hands alternately change, and isolated movements of all fingers are also involved.

How to check the level of development of fine motor skills in your child?

To find out whether your child's developmental level is normal, look at his behavior. So, it is absolutely normal if the child is:

For 2-3 months he reaches out to things with his hands, grabs himself and those around him by the fingers.
3-6 months can skillfully place toys in his mouth, examine his hand movements, and can purposefully grasp objects the size of his fist.
8-12 months can transfer a small object from hand to hand, put small objects into large ones, and pick up small objects using the thumb and index finger.
12-14 months old can draw doodles, turn all the pages of a book at once, and unwrap objects wrapped in cloth or paper.
1-1.5 years puts cube on cube, unscrews small screw caps, assembles pyramids from rings.
1.5-2 years holds two objects with one hand, turns the pages of a book one at a time, places 3 cubes on top of each other
2-2.5 years Unbuttons and fastens large buttons, Velcro, can push and pick up small objects from a flat surface.
2.5-3 years old draws with fingers, knows how to string beads on wire, wields scissors, collects cereal with a spoon.
3-3.5 years draws a straight line and a dotted line, sculpts balls and sausages from plasticine, fastens and unfastens all types of locks, buttons, Velcro, etc.
4-5 years old holds a pencil correctly and draws complex shapes (hexagon, star, heart), strings beads on a thread, and ties knots.
5-6 years old folds paper several times, identifies small objects by touch, catches a ball in flight.
6-7 years old has the skills to work with pens and pencils, draws small details, catches a small ball with one hand, braids hair.

If you notice that your child cannot cope with normal manipulations for his age, do not despair - you can easily catch up and even surpass the norm in a couple of months if you work daily on improving motor skills at home.

Age-related features of the development of fine motor skills of the hands

Arkhipova E.F. Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor at Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow.

Age-related features of the development of fine motor skills of the hands and hand-eye coordination of a child from birth have been studied and described.

After the baby , up to two to three months, the baby's hands can be clenched into a fist, but the thumb should normally be on top, and not inside the fist.

Then, after three months, the fists “open” and the child’s straightened hands begin to pat around themselves, grabbing what adults put into the child’s hands. Then the child's hand begins to reach out to what the eyes see.

After five months, the baby develops a “pincer grip,” where the thumb and index finger stand out. The child's two fingers are parallel, and then the child begins to reach out and grab small objects. Reaches for strings and pays attention to small objects.

Between three and six months , the baby actively moves his hands toward his mouth. Monitors hand movements. Under visual control, he directs his hand towards an object and grasps it.

After six months, the baby develops a “pinching grip.” The child’s fingers, thumb and index, are not connected in parallel, but in a rounded manner. And then there comes a period when the child trains in a pinch grip.

By ten months , the child should develop the “pointing gesture,” but this gesture and the separation of the index finger separately must be taught to the child. A “single” field of vision and action develops. The child's eyes guide the movement of the hand. Children transfer an object from one hand to another, they can put a spoon in a cup, cubes in a box.

There is scientific research data that predicts that if a child has gone through such a path in the development of fine motor skills of the hand until the end of the first year of life, then the brain structures all develop according to ontogenesis, that is, according to the norm.

Both hands of a child under two years of age work equally. Only towards the end of the second year of life does the leading hand begin to be determined.

In the period from one to two years, the child can draw strokes and “doodles”, can hold a cup well, lift it and drink independently. Correlates and places the square in the square slot, and lowers the oval into the oval hole. Can repeat images of several horizontal, vertical and rounded lines. Can hold two objects in one hand at once, draw with a pencil, turn the pages of a book, stack from two to six cubes on top of each other.

Between two and three years of age, a child can turn on musical toys, turn a phone dial with his finger, draw lines, reproduce simple shapes, cut with a plastic knife, and draw a cross according to a pattern. They open drawers and boxes with great interest and tip over their contents. They love to play with sand and clay. They can open screw caps, try using scissors, paint with their fingers, string beads and others.

In the period from three to four years, a child can trace along contours and copy some geometric shapes. Dexterity in the hands appears and the child can grab a ball rolling towards him. The child should hold the pencil correctly with three fingers, and not with a palm grip. He tries to copy shapes with several features and assemble buildings from nine cubes. Can draw not only with pencils, but also with colored crayons. The child can fold a square piece of paper more than once.

Between four and five years of age, a child can color simple shapes, copy capital block letters, and draw a person, depicting two to three parts of his body. Tries to copy square, star and other shapes. A complex cortical brain function “stereognosis” is formed and the child can identify objects by shape, size, texture in the bag by touch, without visual control. The child shows interest in modeling from plasticine and completes tasks according to the model. Masters self-care skills: buttons and unbuttons buttons, opens and closes zippers, unties a scarf, laces shoes, etc. All this is possible only with the correct development of fine motor skills of the fingers.

Between the ages of five and six, a child can carefully cut out pictures and write letters and numbers. Willingly adds missing details to the picture. Can deftly hit a nail with a hammer. Can easily reproduce geometric shapes based on a model.

The age of six to seven years is a sensitive period for the development of fine hand movements necessary for mastering grapho-motor skills for writing. At this age, by organizing various types of activities and systematically using training exercises, you can achieve good results in the development of hand motor skills, form grapho-motor skills and prepare the hand for writing at school.

Features of fine motor skills of children with speech disorders

Research results by N.S. Zhukova, M.M. Koltsova, E.M. Mastyukova, T.B. Filicheva confirms that training fine movements of the fingers stimulates speech development.

Children with speech impairments rarely have confident coordination of finger movements. As a rule, they experience motor clumsiness, imprecision of movements, difficulties in mastering the motor program and switching, and synkinesis (cooperative movements of other parts of the body).

Back in the middle of the last century, it was found that the level of development of children’s speech directly depends on the formation of fine movements of the fingers. If the development of movements corresponds to age, then speech development is within normal limits. If the development of finger movements lags behind, then speech development is delayed or distorted.

Research conducted by M.M. Koltsova, proved that finger movements stimulate the development of the central nervous system and accelerate the development of a child’s speech. Her research confirmed that about a third of the total area of the motor projection of the brain is occupied by the projection of the hand, which is located next to the projection of the speech motor area. And systematic work on the movements of the fingers really stimulates the maturation of the central nervous system, which manifests itself, in particular, in accelerating the development of the child’s speech.

Thus, finger gymnastics stimulates the areas of the cerebral cortex responsible for fine motor skills and speech.

This provision explains the recommendations of scientists to include in the preschool education system activities aimed at developing fine motor skills of the fingers.

Children with speech disorders acquire self-care skills late and with difficulty. Most children cannot button a button, untie a scarf, or perform other self-care tasks.

During drawing classes, they don’t hold a pencil well and their hands are tense. Many children don't like to draw. Motor clumsiness of the hands is especially noticeable during applique classes and with plasticine.

In works on appliqué, difficulties in the spatial arrangement of elements can also be traced. Violation of fine differentiated movements in the fingers is manifested when performing sample tests of finger gymnastics.

Children find it difficult or simply cannot perform an imitation movement without outside help, for example, “lock” - put their hands together, intertwining their fingers; “rings” - alternately connect the index, middle, ring and little fingers with the thumb and other finger gymnastics exercises.

During origami classes they experience enormous difficulties and cannot perform the simplest movements, since both spatial orientation and subtle differentiated movements of the fingers are required. Many children under five or six years old are not interested in playing with small construction sets, do not know how to play with small toys, and do not assemble puzzles.

Children of older preschool age have difficulties in mastering graphic skills. Some children exhibit “mirror writing of letters.” Many children do not have a finger grip on a pencil or pen. Children still have a tendency to palmally grasp a pencil.

Most children of senior preschool age experience general tension in their fingers and hands when drawing. Because of such tension, the child quickly gets tired, and the lines reflecting this tension become uneven and wavy. The more the child tries, the more the tremor-shaking of the hand will be reflected on the paper.

Many studies confirm that the level of speech development is always directly dependent on the degree of development of fine movements of the fingers.

The famous teacher V.A. Sukhomlinsky argued that “the child’s mind is at his fingertips,” therefore improving children’s fine motor skills contributes to the development of their speech and intelligence.

Aristotle called the hands “The hand is the tool of all tools.” Kant called the hands: “The hand is a kind of external brain.”

The English psychologist D. Selley also attached great importance to the “creative work of hands” for the development of children’s thinking and speech.

Currently, modern scientists have established that the level of development of children's speech is directly dependent on the degree of formation of fine movements of the fingers, and the improvement of speech directly depends on the degree of hand training.

Famous neurologist and psychiatrist V.M. Bekhterev wrote that the function of hand movement is always closely related to the function of speech, and the development of the first contributes to the development of the second.

Even the research of physiologist I.P. Pavlov. showed that speech is, first of all, muscle sensations that come from the speech organs and from finger movements to the cerebral cortex.

If you look at a medical atlas and find a “map” of the brain there, you can see that the motor speech area is located very close to the motor area of the hand. The size of the projection zone of the hand and its proximity to the motor speech zone have led many scientists to believe that training fine movements of the fingers will have a great impact on the development of a child’s active speech.

Interesting observations are noted by researchers studying the motor development of children. If a child is asked to make precise movements, he immediately begins to get tired, distracted and tends to evade the task. The inability to achieve accuracy depends on the underdevelopment of cortical mechanisms and on the lack of development of “formulas” of movement, that is, due to lack of training. The child’s apparent motor activity and tirelessness is associated with the fact that he does not make productive working movements that require precision and, consequently, a large expenditure of energy.

Fine motor skills require coordinated motor activity of the small muscles of the hand and eye. It must be mastered gradually. Fine motor skills help a child explore, compare, and classify the things around him and thereby allow him to better understand the world in which he lives. Fine motor skills help a child take care of himself independently, express himself through play and plastic arts, and provide the opportunity to gain social experience.

A number of studies pay much attention to the question of whether the development of a child’s motor skills is a consequence of the natural maturation of the corresponding structures or is it the result of learning.

The conclusions drawn indicate that both natural maturation and learning are equally significant for the formation of a child’s motor skills. This is especially true for finger motor skills.

Research shows that imitation plays an important role in mastering hand movements. There are three types of imitative reactions: repetition of one’s own movements; repetition of familiar adult movements; repetition of new movements.

According to L. S. Vygotsky, drawing “is a kind of graphic speech, a graphic story about something.” Special studies have shown that there is a kind of critical moment when simple pencil scribbling and meaningless scribbles begin to mean something.

Ways to develop fine motor skills

To improve fine motor skills, you don’t need to do tedious training and boring activities - all exercises are done in a light playful and entertaining way that will help brighten up your child’s leisure time.

Massage

Massage can be practiced to develop motor skills of both the youngest children and older schoolchildren. It is advisable to massage and stretch your hands before starting the main exercises.

Warming up the palms and hands can be done without the help of foreign objects; for this you just need to massage, rub and pinch the palms and bend the baby’s fingers. In this case, you can recite various rhymes or simply pronounce all the actions. Over time, the child will learn to do this warm-up without outside help.

You can also use improvised means: pencils, balls, small hard toys. Objects need to be rolled between the palms, inserted between the fingers and fixed in certain positions.

You can build improvised “pools”: containers with sand, cereals, lids or small balls. In this pool, the baby must lower his hands and move them, move the filler elements with his fingers, and mix the contents.

These exercises allow you to warm up your muscles and increase blood flow. Pink palms and fingers serve as a signal that the exercise has been performed well and that you can move on to the next one.

Finger games

Such games involve the child using his hands and fingers to depict certain objects, thereby developing coordination of movements.

Glasses . The child can make circles first with the whole fist, and then only with the thumbs and forefingers, bring the “glasses” to the eyes, etc.
Chair and table. Using a fist and palm, a chair is depicted, then the position of the hands changes. Then the chair can be depicted with one hand.
Boat . The palms are folded into a handful and the “boat” begins to travel, carrying “passengers” - small toys that need to be held or caught.
Scissors . By pretending to be scissors with the fingers of one hand, the baby “cuts” first the soft tissue, and then harder objects.

Lacing and dress up games

In stores you can buy special development books with fastening elements: zippers, Velcro, buttons, rivets, laces, etc. If desired, you can make them yourself. Working with such educational books, the child will not only develop fine motor skills, but also learn to dress faster.

Children are also offered special embroidery kits that use laces instead of threads. So a child can make crafts, “sew” handbags, wallets, etc. Girls especially like these toys.

Finger paint

It is difficult for young children to draw with brushes, watercolors or gouache, but this is not a reason to put drawing on the back burner. Special finger paints are now sold in stores: they do not contain harmful substances, which means that even if the baby swallows a little dye, nothing bad will happen.

Let the baby first get acquainted with paints and make prints of his fingers and palms. Next, teach him to draw lines and circles. With children 3-4 years old, you can already start drawing animals, houses, cars. Gradually, finger paints should be replaced with regular ones, and fingers with brushes.

Applications

Older children can engage in this type of creativity: from the age of 4-5, children can cut out figures from paper and cardboard, which means they can start practicing. Try to use not only paper, but also small unusual details: cereals, seeds, napkins, pebbles, sticks, etc. Crafts should be voluminous and detailed.

Ideas for creativity:

tree with true leaves;
fish with scales in the form of rhinestones;
flowers made from rolled napkins;
lamb made from rice or semolina;
hedgehog with needles made from sunflower seeds.

If you can’t spend time coming up with the next project, purchase special quilling kits. Working with small tapes and pieces of paper also effectively develops small arm muscles.

Modeling

Plasticine of varying hardness, clay, dough and kinetic sand can be used as modeling material. It’s worth starting with softer and more pliable materials.

Children aged 2-4 years should be taught to roll sausages, balls and other basic shapes. Older children can already be trusted to create a real picture from plasticine. At 6-7 years old, children can already create real figurines with small details, so you can get your child interested in creating clay figurines.

Such classes allow you to broaden your horizons and gain knowledge about the color, shape, size and texture of the material.

Origami and other activities with paper

With paper and cardboard, a child can do more than just draw. You can invite him to cut and glue various appliqués, make paper beads, weave from strips of paper, glue various figures, and also make origami crafts.

To ensure that the little student does not lose interest in work, it is important that the classes constantly change and the goals become more complex. For example, you should start with simple airplanes and boats, and then move on to cranes, tigers and more complex figures.

Shadow play

Shadow theater can be a great family activity. To begin with, you should build and decorate the stage together with your child. Performances can begin with manual theater, when a child depicts an animal or object with his hands, and parents or friends guess. At first, these will be simple images that can be easily composed with your fingers: a bunny, a dog, a bird. Then you can act out entire scenes with more complex characters.

Next, you can make special figurines for the finger theater - paper caps in the form of characters from the play. At first, it is better to act out scenes from familiar fairy tales, in which there is a lot of dialogue: “The Three Little Pigs”, “The Fox and the Hare”, “Teremok”. As your child masters the skill of controlling his fingers, you can turn to your favorite cartoons.

So, with one idea you can keep your child occupied for several months, develop his motor skills, as well as artistic qualities.

Tasks with elements of writing

Six-year-olds can be occupied with more professional activities that will help them prepare for school and writing . You can purchase special coloring books with different types of shading. You can also offer decals in which you need to trace the contours of various objects using stencils.

Visual and auditory dictations are especially interesting for preschoolers, when the child needs to draw a picture following a spoken or drawn algorithm. Such activities influence the development of the child’s perseverance and attention.

There are such a large number of activities aimed at developing the small muscles of the hands that they are enough to fill the entire leisure time of the baby. Use your imagination, buy special games or books and move on to improving your fine motor skills!

When should I start developing fine motor skills?

Experts recommend that children begin developing fine motor skills at eight months of age. It is during this period that the fingers will already be amenable to active training. You can, of course, start developing fine motor skills earlier by inviting your baby to play with objects of different textures, shapes and sizes, as well as with special toys, which, by the way, are easily made from what you have at home, but it’s not a guarantee that they will result. So, eight months is the most optimal period.

And the next completely logical question would be: “What are the ways to develop fine motor skills?” This is exactly what we will answer below.

By and large, the choice of means for developing fine motor skills is quite diverse. Moreover, the more methods you use, the more effective and complete the classes will be, and the result will become more tangible.

So, let's look at the most common and popular ways to develop fine motor skills.

Helping mom and developing or training for the lazy

You can work on improving the coordination of small and precise hand movements while doing everyday activities. So, the baby does not distract his parents, is busy with something that is interesting to him and benefits from it. If this prospect makes you happy, remember our recommendations so that you can apply them in your everyday life next time.

In the kitchen

Agree, when there is no one to leave the child with, the cooking process turns into a complete ordeal. The baby strives to spend time with you, completely not appreciating the dangerous proximity to fire, sharp or hot objects. Try to keep your mischievous child busy - hand him a jar of buckwheat, rice, millet or any other cereal and ask him to sort through the grains, separating out the debris. To stimulate interest, you can assign a special prize or reward.

As a result, you get a wagonload of advantages: the child is busy and does not interfere with cooking, the cereals are sorted and cleaned, another training session on the baby’s motor skills is carried out.

It will also be useful if the baby performs simple manipulations: peeling tangerines, salting ready-made dishes, adding sauces, sorting cutlery - in general, doing those basic tasks that you can trust him with.

In bathroom

Are morning or evening preparations not enjoyable for your child? Invite him to help you and speed up the waiting minutes. Entrust your baby with an important mission - to open all the jars, boxes and tubes that you will need to use, then close and put them back in place. This way you can satisfy your child’s natural interest and teach him how to quickly handle different types of containers.

In wardrobe

Clothes carry a large cognitive and developmental load for the baby: this includes a large number of parts and fastenings that you need to learn to handle, and a variety of fabrics that are very useful to study by touch.

To begin, invite your child to help you sort and fold things. Let the mother put away the adults' wardrobe items, and the child - his own. Teach him the correct techniques and algorithms and enjoy his little helper as he improves his fine motor skills.

It is also worth encouraging your child to dress himself. Allocate more time for this, give your child the necessary clothes and teach them how to put them on. At first, let these be lightweight items of clothing without buttons, locks or rivets. When the baby begins to easily cope with T-shirts, loose pants, socks and sweaters, move on to more complex things. Daily repetition of such training will allow you to master the skills of dressing yourself and improve coordination of movements.

You will be surprised how in a couple of months the baby, whom you should have worked with in your free time, turns into your mother’s little assistant, deftly using his fingers.

Modeling from clay, plasticine or salt dough

Today it is a well-known fact that working with such “materials” as clay, plasticine and salt dough perfectly develops fine motor skills and also has a wonderful effect on the imagination.

What you can do:

Cover glass bottles with plasticine and shape them into teapots, vases, jugs, etc.
Lay out specific designs from plasticine in the form of balls, sausages on cardboard or plywood
Make impressions on clay, dough or plasticine by pressing on them with fingers, toys, coins, buttons, etc.
Make balls, rings, sausages, then cut into separate pieces, and then put them together again (you can shape individual pieces)
Make several different parts and put them together into a composition (you can prepare the elements yourself, and after that give them to the child to work with)

Instructions for parents

It would seem that there are so many opportunities for improvement, but how to choose the appropriate methods and activities? So that you can confidently make the right choice, our psychologists have compiled a number of tips and recommendations.

Exercise with your child . Joint activities will not only strengthen relationships, but will also help the child cope with tasks with greater efficiency.
Conduct your classes systematically . To achieve good results, the baby should exercise at least 1 time a day. If you periodically skip training, try to replace the games your child is accustomed to with educational games.
Classes should be engaging, not boring . To do this, you need to choose the optimal duration of training for your child - as soon as he starts to get tired, stop training. Change tools and activities, include elements of play and creativity in your work.
Encourage your child's creative activity , let him come up with some exercises himself - it will be easier for you.

Exercises using additional objects

In addition to the fact that exercises using additional objects are very exciting and entertaining, they excellently contribute to the development of spatial imagination.

Among these games are:

Mosaic. To begin with, it is enough that the baby simply inserts mosaic elements into the base. Subsequently, you should specify a specific image or shape for the child to post it. The ideal option would be a mosaic with different hats.
Abacus. Give your child the task of moving the counting rings from one end to the other. To develop counting skills, you can also move the rings in order.
Threads. This refers to the usual winding and unwinding of threads on various objects. You can, for example, select figures of some animals in advance, and the child will wrap them with threads, giving them color. These same figures can be used for games.
Paper clips. To play this game, you will need regular colored paper clips and several sheets of colored paper. The task is to collect leaves of the same color into a small bundle, and then fasten them with the same paper clip.
Bolts and nuts. Nothing fancy is required - just large bolts and nuts. And the point of the game is even simpler - screw the nuts onto the bolts.
Clothespins. Take clothespins and attach them to rope, cardboard or any other base. The task can also be complicated: some identification marks are glued onto the base and clothespins, for example, colored cards or letters, and the child attaches the clothespins to the corresponding bases.

In fact, this list of games for developing fine motor skills is not exhaustive. For this purpose, you can find some other games or come up with your own. Remember that anything is suitable for developing motor skills: water, sand, laces, wire, paper, etc. and so on.

And one more thing: developing fine motor skills is useful not only for children, but also for adults, so even if you don’t have children, go to the store for plasticine, and we assure you, the evening will be usefully spent.

We also recommend reading:

Storytelling
Piaget's theory of cognitive development
A person's main limiting belief
Top 5 most important soft skills for every child
A selection of courses for children and parents
Dyslexia: Definition, Causes, Symptoms and Treatment
Factors in a child’s intellectual development
How to teach a child to read: rules, tips and tricks
Exercises for memory development in preschoolers
Speech thinking in children and adults: what is it and why is it needed?
BRAIN digest

Key words:1Children