Date
27 July 2025

Support motor skills

Support ākonga to develop fine and gross motor skills.

On this page:

Develop coordination skills

Develop coordination skills

Professor Amanda Kirby talks about the importance of regular practice and a focus on essential or interesting skills.

Where possible integrate skills activities into classroom routines.

Video hosted on Youtube http://youtu.be/FCcNxbY1bmQ

Develop motor skills

Develop motor skills

Give students multiple opportunities to develop skills and master essential tasks.
  • Focus on essential tasks or skills the student is interested in.
  • Break a task down into small steps.
  • Support the steps with visuals.
  • Teach and practise the steps regularly to build into a movement sequence.
  • Provide multiple options to develop essential skills. For example, use small play items to develop fine motor skills for writing.
  • Provide alternative means of completing tasks. For example, Velcro™ shoes while learning to tie shoelaces or as an alternative.

Improve balance

Improve balance

Increase opportunities for indoor and outdoor physical activities throughout the school day.

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Source: Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga

Source:
Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga

Understand how dyspraxia affects handwriting

Understand how dyspraxia affects handwriting

See how a handwriting task is challenging for this student with dyspraxia.
Video hosted on Youtube http://youtu.be/5vUjtY84VkU

Avoid asking students to copy from the board.

Provide lined paper and easy-to-grip pencils.

Encourage the student to use a tablet to take a photo of handwriting to access at their table.

Provide support and alternatives for handwriting

Provide support and alternatives for handwriting

Provide a range of support and alternatives for printing and writing tasks.

Examples of handwriting supports 

  • pen types, sizes, shapes, lengths and colours
  • pen and pencil grips
  • surface types, such as paper, whiteboards, laminated sheets
  • lined paper to guide alignment 
  • furniture, such as an angled board, adjustable height tables, chairs for optimal positioning
  • support for spacing between letters and words, for example using finger spaces.

Examples of alternatives for handwriting

  • keyboards 
  • onscreen keyboards, such as an iPad keyboard
  • voice typing.

Useful resources

Useful resources

Website

To write or to type – that is the question!

This article discusses how children with dyspraxia or other developmental coordination disorders may benefit from using a computer to write.

Visit website

Website

Children with coordination difficulties: a flyer for physical educators

This flyer explains how physical educators can assist children with coordination disorders to perform at school.

Visit website

Next steps

More suggestions for implementing the strategy “Key areas to support”:

Return to the guide “Dyspraxia and learning”

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