The importance of Fine Motor Skills in art & how to teach them
When we think of pupils making progress in art, we tend to think of pupils developing their skills or abilities in separate domains such as drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and so on. Certainly, that’s the way most school progression maps are structured. But this compartmentalisation of skills belies the complex nature of how we make progress. Practical skills aren’t distinct and separate, but are dependent on the same, or similar aspects of fine motor skills.
What are fine motor skills?
Fine-motor skills are movements that require coordination of the fingers, hands, and wrists to complete everyday tasks. Children develop fine motor skills over time, by practicing and being taught. Fine-motor skills require manual dexterity and start to develop in babies and young children, usually improving as children mature.
Typically, fine motor skills involve:
• Pinching between thumb and fingers
• Holding – grasping, gripping, stirring, banging, stacking etc.
• Hand-eye coordination, including visual-spatial skills
• Awareness and planning
• Dexterity and muscle strength
As any Early Years teacher will tell you, fine motor skills are needed for a wide range of tasks such manipulating blocks and shapes, cutting, painting or making patterns, writing, drawing, even reading, language and literacy. Fine motor skills support the advancement and understanding of subjects such as maths, science and reading. In this way, fine motor skills are a strong predictor of later achievement because they aid the growth of intelligence and develop continuously throughout the stages of human development.
Fine motor skills develop from an early age of course, but it’s wrong to believe that FMS are only the concern of the EYFS teacher because they are relevant for children of all ages, even adults. They also underpin large areas of ability in art. They are vital to progression in all practical skills domains, whether that’s drawing, painting, printmaking, crafts or sculpture. Most school-based art and design practical activities are centred around fine motor skills.
It isn’t a level playing field
Well developed fine motor skills are the difference between being able to make a mark that properly represents our cognitive objectives, and making ones that end up in frustration and scrunched up pieces of paper. Some art teachers attempt to resolve this frustration by widening the goal posts, to make all drawn marks valid, and that’s often a good strategy, but it is usually like trying to put spilt milk back in the bottle. The irritation is manifest as soon as the badly executed line is drawn, and many children lose faith in their ability.
Children that have experienced lots of craft activities at home, are neurotypical and who have full functional movements, tend to do well. Those that have motor difficulties or impairments, or who have not been given opportunities like this from an early age will struggle to realise their cognitive intentions. They might know what they want to achieve, but not be able to realise their intentions as well as they would like. Or, they simply might not have any relative prior experiences, and so not understand what is being asked of them. Additionally, they might not feel emotionally secure when they are learning or need more time and practice. Ability in art then, at least when it comes to practical skills, is closely related to fine motor skills; which are in turn related to physical and mental ability, nurture, patience and repeated practice.
The same fine motor skills underpin a diverse range of skills
Fine motor skills are diverse, and so the same core skill is employed in different ways, at different times, using different materials. For example, to be able to shade tonally, some component skills are required. You have to first be able to shade uniformly and evenly, then shade neatly to the edges of shapes. Then you develop the ability to shade gradients, controlling the pressure of the media and finally, you need to understand how light affect objects and so model 3D forms. Now these skills can take years to develop, even whole key stages,but the mistake some schools make is that they teach them predominantly through drawing with a pencil and paper, when in fact, these same skills of applying uniform shading and working neatly to edges apply when using charcoal, or chalk pastel, even paint! In fact, shading with a pencil, especially a HB pencil, is much harder than shading with many other art materials, so it’s better to teach the skill through the easier mediums first.
Girls develop fine motor skills earlier than boys but boys develop gross motor skills earlier
It’s also worth bearing in mind that as early as pre-school, girls advance their fine motor skills faster than boys. They mature more quickly than boys at this age, and are more advanced in balance and motor dexterity, but boys develop gross motor skills faster from the age of five. This goes some way to explaining why girls tend to do better in the subject than boys.
One solution to this disparity is to create an intervention programme of fine motor skills development that encompasses every age group, at regular intervals, using repeated practice. One hour a week usually goes a long way to helping those who need support catch up with their more proficient peers.
Another solution is to devote an equal amount of art curriculum time to gross motor skills, which boys favour. Gross motor skills are movement and coordination of the arms, legs, and other large body parts, used in running, crawling and swimming etc. Given the right opportunities however, sculpture is a great place to develop gross motor skills. Through sculpture we can bend wire, or cut, shape and form wood, or carve soap or modelling materials on larger scales. We could make kinetic sculptures, or make sculptures that involve our whole bodies and senses. The more ways you can involve whole arm and body movements, the more you will involve gross motor skills which will level the gender playing field. Simply getting the pupils to stand up while working is also a great way to do that because pupils will automatically incorporate whole body actions to work.
Ways in which you might develop fine motor skills in children:
1. Drawing – straight lines, perpendicular (crossed) lines, curved and diagonal lines, and circles. X-shapes are said to be the hardest to draw because they require us to make diametrically opposing, symmetrical marks. There is no requirement to draw things – representations, or objects. We can develop motor-physical skills by drawing abstract, non-representational marks, shapes or patterns. Most of the skills pupils need to draw lines relates to using a paintbrush so they’re interconnected.
2. Tracing – geometric shapes, images and patterns. Clearly this skill is an extension of skill one, but there are key differences. In this proficiency, children are trying to match prior intentions, to mimic, and imitate lines, shapes and patterns with accuracy. Again, painting colouring pages utilises almost identical skills of accuracy and precision so they’re related.
3. Coordination – cutting shapes and patterns, weaving, sewing, threading, colouring, arranging, building towers and shapes with blocks, matching & sorting. This is a broad ability that can be learned and developed through a diverse range of creative activities. Do an internet search for fine motor skills and you’ll get a huge variety of hits with ideas for developing coordination. To do this well, children utilise visual-spatial skill, and depth perception, with intricate hand movements and hand-eye coordination.
4. Manipulation – modelling with plasticine or clay. Again, this is a very creative skill with many possible solutions. It involves grip, holding ability, pinching skills, kneading, rolling, pressing, and squashing to realise cognitive intentions and so is very reliant on imagination, hand-eye coordination, visual-spatial awareness and concentration.
5. Expression – drawing, painting, inventing, designing, imagining. This is a highly imaginative skill where the ability to visually describe our inner thoughts is important. It’s reliant on teachers instigating creative tasks.
The strategies are applicable at all ages and stages of development but should increase in difficulty incrementally. I think you could quite easily put a fine motor skills programme together using this as a guide. I don’t think it would have to be separate or bolt-on, unless it was being used as a specific catch-up programme. All of these five motor skills areas can be incorporated into art activities in every year group, in just about every term quite easily, without compromising the kinds of art activities you currently do.
The justification in doing this is that you’d be ensuring that the skills they need in their art and design lessons, and for their language and mathematical ability, are being developed. Of course, some children excel in different areas of fine motor skills. Some are better at manipulating materials and modelling, whereas others are better at drawing and tracing, and others are better with coordination and crafts.
Alas, what I haven’t got is a scale of performance to be able to measure attainment. I think schools would need to do that in their own practical setting. There are standardised and non-standardised tests for assessing fine motor skills of course, such as forced matching tasks, the Peabody Developmental Scales, or the Visual-motor integration assessment, but these are beyond the remit of assessment in art and design.
Summary
Fine motor skills underpin most of the tasks and activities we do and so aren’t incidental. Art is important. When we want pupils to develop their painting, drawing or sculpture skills, we shouldn’t see them as distinct, separate processes to be learned in isolation from each other, but rather as parts of a whole learning process that is entwined and related.
Research
• Fine motor skills; everything you need to know by Kirsten Gasnick https://www.verywellhealth.com/fine-motor-skills-overview-examples-and-improvement-5226046#:~:text=Examples%20of%20fine-motor%20skills%20include%3A%201%20Brushing%20your,7%20Typing%208%20Turning%20a%20key%20More%20items
• Background evidence on fine motor skills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine_motor_skill?wprov=sfti1
• Gender differences in fine/gross motor skills https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9541226/
• Analysis of fine motor skill development in children https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370591703_Analysis_of_Early_Childhood_Fine_Motor_Skills_Through_the_Application_of_Learning_Media
• Physical-Motoric Development of Children 4-5 Years in Permendikbud no. 137 of 2014 (study of the concept of child development) on the Indonesian National Standard for Early Childhood Education https://www.academia.edu/38153209/Perkembangan_Fisik_Motorik_Anak_4_5_Tahun_Pada_Permendikbud_no_137_Tahun_2014_kajian_konsep_perkembangan_anak_
• Fine motor skills and early comprehension of the world: Two new school readiness indicators. Developmental Psychology, Grissmer, D., Grimm, K. J., Aiyer, S. M., Murrah, W. M., & Steele, J. S. (2010). https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020104
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