The Relationship Between Fine Motor Skills And Emergent Writing In Children Aged 5-6 Years At The Beginning And End Of The Kindergarten Year

Writing is not only a language skill,but also a motor skill.Although a vast number of studies have begun to study the development of early childhood literacy,a large number of studies have focused on the development of emergent reading in children,and few studies have conducted research on the development of emergent writing in Chinese children.However,the uniqueness of Chinese character makes its writing more complicated than English.It is necessary to study and support emergent writing – a writing preparation activities that Chinese children carry out before formal learning to write.In this study,four fine motor tasks and three emergent writing tasks were used to test and analyze the development of children’s fine motor abilities,emergent writing process characteristics,result performance,and the relationship between them.In order to investigate the development and changes of the relationship between children’s fine motor skills and emergent writing at the beginning and end of the last kindergarten year,this study selected two kindergartens in Xi’an and Hangzhou,a total of 156 children to participate in this study,at the beginning and the end of the last kindergarten year.There are 78 young children at the beginning of the kindergarten year,with an average age of66.25 months,and the proportion of boys is 51.3%;78 children at the end of the kindergarten year,with an average age of 75.58 months,and the proportion of boys is 50%.The results showed that children’s fine motor skills improved significantly from 5 to5.5 years old,and then the development slowed down.In terms of the quality of emergent writing,Chinese character writing ability and written expression ability improved significantly from 5 to 5.5 years old,slowed down between the ages of 5.5 and 6 years,then increased again from the age of 6 to 6.5.In terms of the characteristics of the emergent writing process,the writing time was reduced,the handwriting became smaller,the fluency increased,the pen pressure increased,and the number of strokes decreased.Children’s fine motor skills is significantly related to the quality of emergent writing(test of Chinese character writing and written expression)and most process characteristics(total time spent,handwriting length,number of speed peaks,number of strokes).The fine motor skills of children may have an indirect impact on the performance of emergent writing by affecting their writing efficiency and handwriting size.However,when the factor of time is taken into account,the relationship between children’s fine motor skills and the characteristics of the emergent writing process and result performance has undergone major changes during the kindergarten year.The relationship between children’s fine motor skills and the process characteristics and result performance of the emergent writing has changed from the beginning.To the end of the kindergarten year,the relationship may gradually weaken or even disappear.But the correlation between the characteristics of the emergent writing process and the performance of the result may be strengthened or weakened to varying degrees.At the beginning and the end of the kindergarten year,compared to writing graphic characters,children use longer time,longer single-character handwriting length,larger average pen pressure,more strokes to write Chinese characters.The type of character has little relationship with the absolute handwriting speed of children.At the beginning of the kindergarten year,there was no significant difference in children’s handwriting fluency with Chinese characters and graphic characters;but by the end of the kindergarten year,the handwriting fluency was higher when they are copying Chinese characters.In terms of the written expression ability of children,their writing knowledge,graphic expression and Chinese character expression ability have been significantly improved within one year of the kindergarten.Nouns are earlier than verbs in the development of graphic and Chinese character expression abilities.In some words,children may show more mature expressions that are close to formal written language.But in other words,they may use more elementary drawing-style expressions,and their performance is restricted by writing tasks.In this study,although most children have been able to write several Chinese characters,they still use graphics as the main form of written expression,and seldom use Chinese characters.At the beginning of the kindergarten year,children’s Chinese character writing ability is predicted by age,literacy,total handwriting time,and written expression ability;their written expression ability is predicted by a fine motor skill,handwriting length,and Chinese character writing ability.At the end of the kindergarten year,children’s Chinese character writing ability is predicted by the total writing time,handwriting length,and written expression ability;their written expression ability is predicted by the handwriting fluency and the ability to write Chinese characters.This research supports that the development of Chinese emergent writing for children in kindergarten is based on the mastery of fundamental fine motor skills,gradually according to Chinese language and writing standards,coordinating gradually specialized writing motor,and continuously adapting writing motor to the characteristics of written language.In order to provide effective emergent writing support to kindergarteners,we should put in targeted game materials of fine motor and emergent writing;create a scaffolding-like emergent writing environment for children to have a sense of participation;organize specialized collective education activities of emergent writing;stick to the spiritual core of cultivating children’s writing learning qualities.