Building Strength and Coordination for Writing

Some Backstory

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been learning basic guitar chords. The online instructors jump from chord to chord, and their fingers know exactly where to go. My fingers need direction.  These teachers whip off little melodies. My plucking is inundated with wrong notes and corrections. “Finger 1 on the D string,” they might say. I have to remind myself what is Finger 1, and I have to check my chart for which string is the D string. I’m doing great. 

Why It Matters

There are times when I come across articles or statements about the “less complex” skills of transcription, and, more and more, I take issue with the simplicity of motor skills, handwriting, and spelling. Until any skill becomes automatic, it’s not simple; the brain has to actively work to complete it, and we are all on different learning curves. Maybe some people don’t have to think about the D string, but I still do. 

In our book, Foundational Skills for Written Expression, Maggie Beattie Roberts and I have an entire chapter dedicated to the importance of large motor skills. You may recognize students like the child we feature in the chapter. Maybe you know a student who tends to slouch, leans against any available wall, and collapses after too long when asked to sit independently. 

Some Background Information

When you think about the impact of strength and coordination on writing, it helps you realize that big movements lead to smaller movements. Therefore, paying attention to the development and progression of large motor skills can help develop writers. Multiple large muscle groups and their coordination facilitate the actual production of written words. Proximal muscles, muscle groups closer to the trunk of the body, and distal muscles, ones further from the center of the body, have to work together to produce the intentional curves, lines, and shapes that constitute letters and words.

Building an Assessment Lens

Building an assessment lens around large motor skills can help pinpoint impactful ways to work with writers. Some questions to consider include, but aren’t limited to:

• Can the student hop, balance, and skip?
• Can the child maintain their sitting posture?
• What happens when the child has to integrate multiple movements?
• Can the child coordinate movements that involve crossing their body’s midline?

Watching children play during recess times and having conversations with physical education teachers can also provide useful information about what children can do and what they might be ready to try.

Some Classroom Ideas

Writing might become significantly easier for these children if their core strength and overall coordination increase and improve, so it’s worth building some large motor skill development into routines and daily activities. The following list builds strength that could make written expression easier for some students:

• Any sort of hanging or climbing exercise
• Pushing or pulling objects
• Carrying objects
• Writing on walls
• Any activity that involves the coordinated movements of opposite sides– jumping jacks, scissor jumps, and opposite knee and arm raises build coordination

One fun idea that encompasses purpose and play is to have students lie on their backs and write on paper that is taped to the underside of tables or desks– think Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. Try it! This activity requires a lot of shoulder strength!

You can also incorporate movement into literacy with some of the ideas below, and the more you think about it, the more ideas you’re likely to come up with. 

• Build phonemic awareness with movement. Students can move as they name sounds in words.
• Students can also move through letter shapes, walking the formation as they say it before they move to writing it on paper.
• Have students walk words or sentences, moving from letter to letter or word to word.
• Coach groups of students to “walk a paragraph. Physically moving between sentences builds syntax awareness and also gets people moving– both good things!

More ideas are welcome in the chat!

Closing Thoughts

I’m working on learning my fingers, frets, and strings, and the better I know the chords, the more I can concentrate on strumming patterns– and maybe even singing some words! Similarly, less experienced writers are working on language, motor skills, and coordination to make lines, letters, and words. Therefore, all activities and routines that help to automate those processes will increase the cognitive energy available for text production.