Young gifted children almost always develop in an asynchronous manner, with intellectual abilities such as comparison and analysis developing long before physical abilities such as fine motor control. In some gifted children, this asynchrony causes frustration when the child sees that his output does not match his imagined product. Furthermore, gifted children are often perfectionists who start to balk at doing activities they are “not good at.”
Although there is always room for age-appropriate practice of skills like penmanship, young children often respond better to practice that is disguised as play. In fact, experts would say that for young children, play is practice.
Below are some resources that will help your child develop fine motor skills in a play-based environment. If you have favorite resources you would like to add, please leave them in the comments.
Ed Emberley’s Make a World drawing books use all the skills that children will need for good penmanship, but in a fun and creative environment. Gifted children who like inventories will adore Emberley’s many variations on each drawing, such as the great variety of train cars and engines that he has devised. For more fun Emberley activities, visit his website, http://edemberley.com.
Calligraphy is a fun way for a child to focus on letter shapes without struggling to get thoughts down on paper. A variety of beginning calligraphy books will appeal to children. Although you may be tempted to buy a nice ink calligraphy quill, pre-made calligraphy felt tip pens are easiest to start out with and come in a variety of colors.
Children who love patterns will enjoy Ultradesigns and Geodesigns, which develop fine motor skills while also presenting mathematical concepts in a visual manner.
Your budding mathematicians might enjoy Geometric Graphics from Key Press. Although some of the projects will be too advanced for a young child to complete successfully on her own, these can be enjoyable parent-child activities.
An activity with endless possibilities and lots of fine motor control practice is suggested in Vi Hart’s Doodling in Math Class series on Youtube. Be sure to watch this video through to see the variations on squiggles that your child will enjoy practicing. Although Hart is an accomplished artist, even a young artist will be able to achieve fun results with a simple squiggle drawing, and may derive some mathematical principles along the way.
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