Fine motor skills to support getting ready to read braille

Walk fingers across the table. Finger walk with index and middle fingers.
Make stars with your hands – stretch your fingers out wide and then make a tight fist and repeat
Use Play dough for pinching, poking and squeezing
Post objects into a jar
Play musical instruments especially those that need you to isolate fingers e.g. keyboard, recorder
Screw paper into a ball with one hand
Shredding and ripping paper
Screw and unscrew plastic nuts and bolts
Threading beads
Wind yoyos, wool into balls or onto a large cotton reel
Make pom poms from circles of card and wool
Spin hoops and different sized balls

Place objects on a tray, that offers good contrast. A bun tray works well. Using a tray reduces the risk of objects rolling away and encourages developing good searching skills.
Use thumb and each finger in turn to pick up objects e.g. lego blocks, dried beans, peas, etc and put in cups
Use tweezers to pick up objects such as paper clips, buttons, rice, sequins, dried peas etc.
Take off and replace tops of pens
Flick ping-pong ball, screwed up paper or Maltesers at a target
Open and close clothes pegs with thumb and forefinger
Place pegs into peg board, marbles onto the marble run etc.
Turn over buttons and coins without moving them to the edge of the table.

Encourage pencil to be held in tripod grasp, “pinch it” or with “froggy legs”
Strong elastic band around the fingers and thumb of each hand, open and close
Hold pen in tripod grasp draw imaginary circles, lines and figures of 8 in the air.
Practise scribble patterns on paper or whiteboard. Discourage heavy handedness and tense grasp.

Before holding scissors the child needs to be able to move their thumb, index and middle finger independently – bending and straightening
Open and close tools e.g. tongs to pick up different objects
Squeeze turkey baster to make bubbles in a bowl or draw up water and squirt
Use sponge, small pipette or eye dropper to pick up coloured water for mixing
See how far you can squirt water with squirt guns or washing up bottles
Move onto scissors – could try the Easy Grip, Self – Opening Scissors if needed
- Correct hold gives control – thumb on top and scissors pointing away body
- Open and close without attempting to cut
You may need to make a tactile line to provide a guide to cut – your advisory teacher can help you wit this.
Start by cutting across 1cm strips of thin card, progressing to 3cm then 10 cm
Snip fringes in newspaper, then once able to cut across the paper
Cut within a band of 4cm then gradually reduce to cut within a thick pen line
Put a bend one way into the 4 cm band then reduce width, repeat the other way
Simple straight lined shapes and progress to curved lines, e.g. semicircle, circle
Gradually develop skill by cutting out more complex shapes

Activities for encouraging the use of both hands

Anything requiring the use of both hands will help develop bilateral skills. For example:

Construction, Duplo, Lego, Meccano, Mega Bloks, Stickle Bricks etc
Magnet games e.g. pull magnets apart after fishing with magnetised bait & fish
Use Velcro in games so that it has to be pulled apart afterwards e.g. ball & target
Wind-up toys / timers
Use a hula hoop – will take 2 hands to hold it steady to get started
Dressing and feeding dolly / teddy etc
Squeeze marble or button through small tube of material
Open and close containers, making sure a high level of success can be achieved
Open and close more complex containers e.g. screw top jars, draw strings bags
Playing musical instruments e.g. keyboard, drum, recorder
Clapping / catching a feather / bubble /balloon etc between 2 hands
Use empty squeezy bottles to blow a ping pong ball across the room / table
Use squeezy bottle filled with water to draw on concrete wall outside

Papier mache, junk modelling, pom pom making
Pick out number of small items from bowl of e.g. salt / sand/rice. Supervise small children.
Hide small objects in play dough for children to find and pull out
Cutting up pieces of paper / snipping bits off from a strip of card
Use potato and paint or stamps and an ink pad to stamp on small pieces of paper
Finger puppet play
Cooking – whisking, mixing, beating, mixing or egg-beating. Wind up a timer
Woodwork – use toy tools for hammering and sawing

Catch balls of different weight and size that are impossible to hold with one hand
Throw a ball or balloon up in the air. A balloon would be easiest as it moves more slowly
Bounce a ball on the spot alternate hands
Carry a tray with balls on and don’t let them roll off