Losing our grip: More students entering school without fine motor skills

Lancaster Online ^ | Oct 26, 2015 | KIMBERLY MARSELAS

[Maceman]

As art teacher Alisa Leidich sends four vertical lines marching across an oversize drawing pad in paradelike formation, 20 kindergartners put their hands to paper and try their best to mimic her.

It’s not as easy as it might seem.

Local teachers and occupational therapists say an increasing number of children are showing up for kindergarten without the fine motor skills needed to grip a marker, hold their paper still while coloring or cut and glue shapes.

“We’re basically reteaching a lot of things,” says Denver Elementary School’s Denise Young, a teacher for 23 years. “It’s hard to get a lesson accomplished.”

In a typical year, Young and colleague Trisha Pohronezny estimate just two of 20 students arrive with enough hand strength and coordination to use scissors. Only about half can hold a pencil correctly, versus the fisted approach they should have grown out of by age 3.

Near-constant corrections take valuable time from quick-paced academic programs, while individual sessions to build or strengthen skills require students to miss class and cost districts big money.

Denver Elementary Principal Angela Marley says occupational referrals to address such deficits doubled over a three- to four-year period. Districtwide, Cocalico saw its elementary school therapy spending jump from $85,440 in 2011-12 to $208,104 last school year.

“We’ve been questioning, ‘Why is this happening more and more?’’’ says Linda Cunningham, an occupational therapist with Lancaster-Lebanon IU13 who spends four days a week at Denver Elementary.

“It’s just our busy world. There’s real pressure to get your kid involved (in organized activities) earlier and earlier, so there’s less time to play in the backyard. … Kids need to manipulate their environments to understand spatial concepts. They usually learn not by being told, but by doing.”

Cocalico officials this year instituted an art program that aims to improve coordination and concentration. In years past, kindergartners had only sporadic exposure to art. Now they get one 25-minute session each week, working on pre-writing concepts and skills like cutting, coloring and spatial orientation.

Surrounded by Monet prints, the Mona Lisa and bottles of bold tempera paint, Pohronezny’s students meet Mr. Line in mid-October.

Leidich has students hop out of their chairs and imitate the line: They stand tall for vertical, pretend to sleep on the floor for horizontal, and skip for a broken line. The idea is to connect the writing skills to physical activity.

Getting students in the earliest grades to move while focusing on a task helps with sensory integration. It can also help build muscle. In some cases, Cunningham says, young students are unable to stay seated for sustained periods because they don’t have adequate trunk strength.

During the animated lesson, Leidich, Pohronezny and an aide work the room, looking for errors in posture, grip and arm support.

Once they’ve made shapes with Mr. Line, they’re invited to do “World’s Best Coloring,” a verbal cue to focus on the image and use slow, controlled movements to stay within the lines.

Students get gentle reminders to keep their “helper hands” on the paper, and when Leidich spots Laiklyn Lloyd closing her fingers around her marker, she takes her hand and shows her how to “pinch the tip and flip it.”

Concerns about physical readiness for school are growing locally and nationally.

Warwick School District has also seen an increase in occupational therapy needs, according to Melanie Calender, director of elementary education and student services.

Calender says the years between birth and 3 are “instrumental in core muscle development” and recommends parents incorporate a mix of gross and fine motor skills into at-home play.

While Warwick kindergarten teachers continue to focus on fine and gross motor skills through center-based and instructional activities, parents shouldn’t stop providing hands-on opportunities once their kids are school-age.

“They can continue to use the activities they’ve worked on in the preschool years, mindful to keep a balance with screen time,” says Calender.

In Ephrata Area School District, all early childhood programs include fine motor skill development, according to spokeswoman Sarah McBee. That includes Plant the Seed of Learning, a program that started in partnership with Ephrata Community Hospital in 2002 and now serves eight districts. During sessions, children and their parents work on early literacy and science skills while manipulating play dough or catching bubbles.

The New York Times reported in February that public schools in New York City saw a 30 percent increase in the number of students referred to occupational therapy, with the number jumping 20 percent in three years in Chicago and 30 percent over five years in Los Angeles.

While some of those increases are due in part to an increased diagnoses of sensory or autism spectrum disorders, Marley says the additional need at her school is related to children without cognitive impairment.

What’s changed?

Cunningham says many therapists believe the Back to Sleep campaign, which promotes placing infants on their backs to sleep, has delayed muscle development. The problem becomes more pronounced when parents skip wakeful tummy time because their kids don’t like it: toddlers might not be able to hold their bodies upright as well as their peers did years ago.

They might not be as adept at spreading their hands and using their arms to push themselves up, a fundamental base for good seated posture and proper shoulder support when writing. Their eyes also may wander, making focusing on detailed tasks difficult.

Today’s children also spend less time outside, where they might have more opportunities to explore how their bodies move through space, learn to balance and figure how to handle toys and tools in relation to one another.

Some parents, says Cunningham, are afraid to let their children engage in physical play or cut with scissors. Others have traded in the messiness of hands-on play dough for a sterile “educational” tablet.

“Rather than sit and color the way they used to do, our kids are part of the burst of technology,” says Cunningham. “It’s amazing to see a kid who can swipe an iPad, but you put a pair of scissors in their hand and they don’t know what to do.”

[nightlight7]

The FR server software still has that bug that appeared recently in its code for conversion to UTF8.

[cripplecreek]

Today's children also spend less time outside, where they might have more opportunities to explore how their bodies move through space, learn to balance and figure how to handle toys and tools in relation to one another.

When I was a kid I was always outside and even today I spend at least a few minutes of every waking hour outside.

[Crazieman]

I find this odd, considering the fine motor skills required in sniping people in only a couple hundred video games; all on PC, XBOX, PSX, and Nintendo.

Believe me, I know, having spent a considerable amount of skill determining wind, gravity, and air resistance on Battlefield 3 and 4 for 1500+ yard sniper shots.

[ETL]

Via an e-mail some years ago, with some minor modification by myself...

Teaching Math In 1950:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1960:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit?

Teaching Math In 1970:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit?

Teaching Math In 1980:
A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20 Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

Teaching Math In 2010:
A logger cuts down some beautiful forest trees because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living?
________________________________

[cripplecreek]

Believe me, I know, having spent a considerable amount of skill determining wind, gravity, and air resistance on Battlefield 3 and 4 for 1500+ yard sniper shots.

Now try it while laying dead still in the mud for 10 or 12 hours in the freezing rain while an enemy sniper seeks to kill you permanent dead. Throw in some hunger, enemy patrols wandering around you and the need to take a dump and we'll see how good your fine motor skills are.

[polymuser]

“I need to pacify these bothersome kids with TV or their tablet. I just don’t care or have the energy to pay attention to them, I just want to chill with my drink and text my BFFs.”

American women strike again. Pitiful state they’ve put us in, with their neglected daycare-raised children, broken marriages, feminist attitudes and who they’ve voted for. Sorry, gals, but it’s reality that’s hurting our nation.

[ThanhPhero]

My goddaughter in Việt Nam at 22 months held a pencil the way an American adult holds one, at least before the schools started to teach kids to hold pencils in their fists like toddlers do. She could feed herself with chopsticks and eat soup with a spoon without spilling it, indeed I watched her transfer soup with a spoon from one bowl to another while standing on the chair and leaning over the table without spilling. She could accurately kick or throw a soft rubber ball across the room to someone and could catch it. I fear I am too old to see her education through properly but I will send the funds necessary to keep her in a good Catholic school which her parents love (they are Buddhist) because it really pushes the bright kids more than the government schools do though they do a better job than most American schools do now.

[ZULU]

Stupid government owned sheep don’t need thumbs. :)

[NonValueAdded]

Yes, it is getting quite tedious.

Note the avoidance of using the contraction.

[rdcbn]

A big component of this loss of fine motor skills is due to drug and alcohol abuse during pregnancy,especially in the welfare classes

Fetal drug and alcohol syndrome is epidemic in the black urban welfare ghettos and poor fine motor skills are one result of fetal exposure to drugs and booze

So are low IQ, attention deficit, poor reasoning capability, poor impulse control and poor anger management skills

[Mr Ramsbotham]

When my kids were about seven months old, I'd put them in a high chair, cover them with a huge bib, then set a big bowl of baby cereal mixed with fruit in front of them along with a spoon. The hand would grab the spoon, the spoon would inevitably go into the mouth, and a wonderful, messy discovery was made. They were feeding themselves in no time flat. I recall people in a restaurant being very impressed that my one-year-old was eating with a fork.

Any kid can learn this way, but you've got to have the patience to put up with the mess.

[knarf]

What?

Check that finger action on the celphones ...

WIZARDS !!!

[Mouton]

Unfortunately most of them seem to grasp the concept of operating a trigger or knife.

[EinNYC]

So are low IQ, attention deficit, poor reasoning capability, poor impulse control and poor anger management skills.

You just described most of the urban ghetto students I've seen. They get in their own way when it comes to academic success because of these things. Many times you have to coax them not to just walk out of the classroom or to remain in their seats. You have to ask them to open their notebooks and encourage them to read short passages. When I was a kid in school, I read everything, everywhere. You couldn't keep me from reading. These kids act like it's a death sentence to have to read a few passages and then--oh horrors!--write a few paragraphs. You have to specify that the paragraphs must consist of complete sentences, too. It's very sad. And you have to wonder how these kids are possibly going to replace US.

[Varda]

You hit the nail on the head. Two months old is when the women in my office abandon their kids in daycare. They call it school.

The husbands are no better, they approve of it. They need to live in better neighborhoods doncha know.

[Rodamala]

but I bet they can all play Candy Crush just fine.

[Crazieman]

Oh, I understand what really goes in to real life scenarios.

But here we’re going over simple hand-eye coordination, many of whom would fail the mental calculations needed in a ‘simple’ video game.

[randita]

I’ve heard from Kindergarten teachers that it’s pretty common for children starting classes to not even know alphabet letters and numbers.

[WHBates]

Bump for later