Summary of Fine Motor Activities in Head Start and Kindergarten Classrooms

Introduction

Marr et al., (2003) argue that fine motor skills enhance the development of children's cognitive, emotional, and social skills. National education objective defines fine motor skills as one of the aspects required by kindergarten children for learning readiness. School readiness has been explained as a process of obtaining the foundational skills necessary to learn new activities (Slavin, Karweit, & Wasik, 1994). However, the NAEYC modified this conventional definition to incorporate the five dimensions outlined by the National Education Goals Panel (1993): (1) physical well-being and motor development, (2) social and emotional development, (3) approaches toward learning, (4) language development. The U.S. Department of Education and the National Center for Research Statistics have projected a theoretical framework of readiness (West, 2000). The structure is centered on the hypothesis that the development of preparation for school instigates at birth and endures until the child enters school. Therefore, this study was conducted to provide the answer to the question of what are the types of fine motor activities and what is the time spent on those activities in Head Start and kindergarten classrooms.

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A sample of children in 10 Head Start and ten kindergarten classrooms were placed under close observation that lasted for a day. Moreover, 24 hours of observation was divided into four sectors: fine fine motor activities with no academic purpose, fine motor activities with an academic mission, educational activities with no fine motor component, and non-academic activities with no fine motor component. The children's time spent in each of the four categories was calculated. The time consumed in undertakings that took place outside the classroom (i.e., lunch for kindergarten, recess for both classes, and "specials" such as music, physical education, library, computer training, and art for both classrooms) was left out from the study, as these were not directly detected. Lunch took place in the classroom for children in Head Start but was ruled out from the analysis for reliable comparison across classrooms. The clock time for the two children in each class was rounded to get the mean time spent on fine motor understandings in each classroom. Moreover, ratios of the period were calculated, and t-tests were employed for comparison between backgrounds.

Conclusion

The result obtained read as follows children in Head Start spent 27%-46% (mean of 37%) of the in-class day in all fine motor activities whereas children in kindergarten spent 36%-66% (mean of 46%). For children in kindergarten, 42% of total fine motor activity time involved paper and pencil activities. However, children in Head Start spent 10% of entire fine motor activity time in paper and pencil activities. Therefore, the study concluded that the greater the mean percent of time spent in fine motor activities in kindergarten classrooms indicate a developmentally suitable escalation in fine motor demands. The percentage of paper and pencil activity time the children engaged in substantially increased from Head Start to kindergarten.

Reference

Ewell, P. T., & Jones, D. P. (1993). Actions matter: The case for indirect measures in assessing higher education's progress on the national education goals. The Journal of General Education, 123-148.

Slavin, R. E., Madden, N. A., Dolan, L. J., Wasik, B. A., Ross, S., Smith, L., & Dianda, M. (1996). Success for All: A summary of research. Journal of Education for Students placed at Risk, 1(1), 41-76.

Marr, D., Cermak, S., Cohn, E. S., & Henderson, A. (2003). Fine motor activities in Head Start and kindergarten classrooms. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 57(5), 550-557.