Fine motor skills: what is it and how to work it?

Motor skills is the ability that allows us to execute a series of movements through the body and of its different parts. In childhood, this develops exponentially, and is very important for learning and the development of other functions.

We distinguish two types of motor skills: fine motor skills and gross motor skills. The fine is the most precise and difficult to execute, and the one that has the greatest weight in the child's cognitive development. In this article we will know what it consists of, its 4 fundamental characteristics and 4 activities to work on it, especially in the little ones.

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Fine motor skills: what is it and how to work it?

Before explaining what fine motor skills are, let's see what motor skills consist of. Motor skills is the ability of the human body to perform movement. When we move voluntarily, we achieve it thanks to the central nervous system, muscles and joints.

Our brain receives the order to carry out a certain movement and this is how the nervous system executes it (this if we do not have any pathology that alters said operation).

If we specify more, and we talk about psychomotor skills, we see that this integrates the psychological aspects in the movement. Psychomotricity plays an important role in the maturation of the personality, in learning and in discovering the environment, especially in childhood.

Motor skills - and psychomotor skills - have evolved from the moment we are born, through different learning processes. Each boy and girl learns at her own pace different postures and movements (sitting, crawling, walking ...) and perfecting her movements (which become more complex and directed towards an end).

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Now, we are going to explain what types of motor skills exist, what fine motor skills consist of and how we can work on it to enhance it:

Types of motor skills

There are two types of motor skills or psychomotor skills, fundamental for the development of the child. They are as follows.

1. Gross Motricity

Gross motor skills appear first in the child's development. It involves an ability to perform wide movements (for example: raising the arms). In this type of movement, the coordination of large muscle groups is important.

Furthermore, here strength matters more than precision. On the other hand, in fine motor skills the opposite occurs, as we will see now.

2. Fine motor

Fine motor skills develop a little later, since it is a more precise and complex motor skills.

Thus, this type of motor skills (also called “fine motor skills”), allows us to carry out more precise and slow movements. short distance (for example, tracing a dotted silhouette with a pencil, or picking up an object with the hand in a gripper). The more the child develops, the better fine motor skills they have.

Characteristics of fine motor skills

As we have seen, fine motor skills encompass a type of precise movement, but not only that. Let's see in a little more detail the characteristics of this type of motor skills then.

1. It involves precise movements

The first characteristic of fine motor skills is the type of movements that it allows to execute: these are precise movements. Examples of this type of movement are: picking up silverware, cutting out a figure on paper, writing, grab a pencil or pen, pick up a small object, thread a string with beads (make a bracelet), etc.

Logically, there are different degrees of precision in each of these movements.

2. It implies dexterity

Another characteristic of fine motor skills is that it requires dexterity. That is why the youngest children still do not have it very developed, but little by little as they grow they strengthen it.

3. Requires maturation

Fine motor skills are a type of motor skills that require a certain level of maturity. That is, there must be a certain mental and physiological development for the child to begin to use fine motor skills.

4. Requires dominance and control

Another characteristic is that it requires mastery and control on the part of the person, since the movements that allow fine motor skills are precise. This dominance and control should be located especially in the hands and arms.

How to work fine motor skills? 4 activities

Fine motor skills are very important in development because it allows the execution of movements that will later help to learn even more sophisticated functions and important for learning (for example the realization of the digital clamp [with the fingers] will allow graphomotor (graphic movement of the hand to to write).

A) Yes, has a very important weight for the child's psyche and for the evolution of their cognitive and intellectual abilities, among other.

We are going to see some activities to work this type of motor skills. Obviously, we can adapt them depending on the age of the child. Some of these exercises, in addition, can also be worked with adults who have lost the capacity to perform fine motor movements as a result of an accident or brain damage (for example, a ictus).

1. Clothespins for hanging clothes

An activity that can be worked on with children to improve their fine motor skills is to pick up the clothespins to hang the clothes from a bowl or container and place them (making the gesture of a clamp) on some surface (for example, on the edges of a box).

It is a good way to strengthen your index, middle and thumb fingers. In addition, they must use precision, by measuring the exact force they must exert at the moment of pressure to open the clamp.

2. Screw cap bottles

Another possible activity is to use bottle screw caps. Children can twist and unscrew them on the bottle. You can use colored bottles and caps (each cap is screwed and unscrewed on the bottle that corresponds to it), or mix colors and order them, etc.

Thus, in addition to working on fine motor skills, matching and color discrimination are worked on.

3. Chopsticks and jars of spices

In this game we would use chopsticks and spice jars (the small and narrow ones). The goal of the child will be to insert the chopsticks into the holes in the spice jar. This exercise is ideal for working on precision. One tip is to use jars of the cinnamon species, since their holes are the right size for toothpicks.

4. Bead bracelets or chains

In this exercise we need thread and beads. Various materials can be used (more or less thick thread, different types of beads ...) depending on the child's motor skills level and her age. Thus, the child must introduce the beads (for example balls) one by one into the thread to finally make a bracelet (or a simple string of beads). It is ideal for precision work.

5. Kitchen's clamps

In this game to work on fine motor skills we will use: kitchen tongs (long and wide), marbles or pompoms (or any object that can be easily grasped with the tweezers) and some containers (3 or 4). The objective will be to grab the marbles one by one (or the object in question) and transfer them from one container to another.

They can hold the forceps with one or two hands, as the muscles of the hands and fingers are still being worked. Different colors can be used for the containers and marbles so matching and color discrimination work as well.

Bibliographic references

• Aguirre, J. (2005). The adventure of movement. Psychomotor development of the child from 0 to 6 years old. Pamplona. Public University of Navarra.

• Aznar, J.M. (2006). Motor skills and cognition. An empirical study. Apunts Physical Education and Sports, 86: 108.

• Rigal, R. (1988). Human motor skills. Fundamentals and pedagogical application. Madrid. Teleña pile.

• Zabaleta, J.A. (2012). Fine Motor Skills, a step prior to the writing process.