Elsevier

Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Volume 47, 2nd Quarter 2019, Pages 248-258
Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Children’s fine motor skills in kindergarten predict reading in grade 1

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.12.015Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Links between fine motor skills (FMS) and early reading were systematically investigated.

  • FMS played a role in reading performance in grade 1, above and beyond numerous control variables.

  • Children’s engagement in grapho-motor activities did not explain the contribution that FMS make to reading.

  • FMS show links to reading, supporting the idea of shared internalized-motor processes between these skills.

Abstract

Research points toward the role of children’s fine motor skills (FMS) in reading development but needs to better control for confounding variables and establish explanatory pathways. Three explanations for links between FMS and reading are developed that focus on shared development, functionalism, and shared internalized motor processes. Using a longitudinal cross-lagged design with 120 kindergarteners followed into grade 1, we administered measures of reading, FMS, IQ, executive functions (attention, rapid naming), phonemic awareness, nonword repetition, grapho-motor skills, handwriting, as well as receptive and expressive vocabulary. Structural equation modelling indicated a unique diagonal pathway from kindergarten FMS to grade 1 reading, over and above the control variables. Grapho-motor and handwriting skills did not mediate the link between FMS and reading, as predicted by functionalism. Overall, findings suggest that early FMS are subtly but importantly linked to reading in elementary school.

Introduction

To many researchers, fine motor skills (FMS) resemble an estranged relative – forgotten by many, derided by some, properly understood by no one, yet still impossible to ignore. Indeed, psychologists, educators, computer scientists, paediatricians, and philosophers alike have grappled with the question of how FMS, and the broader constructs of sensorimotor skills and experiences, relate to language and thought (Barsalou, 2010, Inhelder and Piaget, 1968, Knott, 2012). Indeed, a seminal question in early education revolves around whether programmes should focus on sensorimotor activities or academic skills, or some combination of these (Marcon, 2012).

Research is beginning to indicate that kindergarten FMS may contribute to explaining academic development in elementary school. Thus, links exist between FMS and cognitive and mathematical development (Becker, Miao, Duncan, & McClelland, 2014; Davis, Pitchford, & Limback, 2011; Dellatolas et al., 2003; Grissmer, Grimm, Aiyer, Murrah, & Steele, 2010; Luo, Jose, Huntsinger, & Pigott, 2007; Martzog, 2015; Pagani, Fitzpatrick, Archambault, & Janosz, 2010), and even with vocabulary development (Suggate and Stoeger, 2014, Suggate and Stoeger, 2017). Interestingly, support appears to be gathering for the counter-intuitive idea that FMS also play a role in early reading development (Cameron et al., 2012, Grissmer et al., 2010; Suggate, Pufke, & Stoeger, 2018) and beyond (Brookman, McDonald, McDonald, & Bishop, 2013).

However, more work is need to verify whether FMS play a role in early literacy and reading development and what pathways account for such links, so that the theoretical and practical significance can be better understood. Three explanations showing promise in explaining links between FMS and reading that focus on: shared developmental and cognitive processes, functionalism, and shared internalised-motor processes. Therefore, we conducted a study in which we (a) controlled for developmental and cognitive factors related to FMS and reading skill, namely IQ, executive functions, and preliteracy skills, (b) investigated links longitudinally using a cross-lagged design to establish patterns consistent with causality, and (c) compared models for the theoretical accounts against each other.

FMS represent a skill set linked to a number of similar constructs including hand-eye coordination, visuo-motor skills, grapho-motor skills, and even handwriting (Bart, Hajami, & Bar-Haim, 2007). In the current work, we adopt and define three discrete terms, namely FMS, grapho-motor, and writing skills. Beginning with FMS, we adopt a previous definition of FMS as “small muscle movements requiring close eye-hand coordination” (Luo et al., 2007, p. 596). Measures of FMS usually revolve around block or small object manipulation, threading beads, shifting pegs, or posting coins. Grapho-motor skills refer to a subset of FMS that directly involve skills closely tied to writing (e.g., copying characters/symbols), without requiring the cognitive knowledge of letters reproduced from memory. Finally, writing skills are grapho-motor skills that are coupled with the cognitive knowledge of letters and words, leading to the ability to produce letters and words with correct form and in a fluent manner. Given that the current focus is on initial writing skills, we adopt the term handwriting to refer to skill at producing written letters and words on tasks requiring lower levels of cognitive knowledge (e.g., writing own name vs. compositions). It is likely that FMS are necessary but not sufficient for grapho-motor skills, which are in turn necessary but not sufficient for hand-writing skills (Suggate et al., 2018).

Early literacy skills are precursor skills that are involved in reading development and can be measured before reading skill itself develops (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Early literacy skills include: letter knowledge (i.e., being able to recognize and name letters), knowledge of letter-sound correspondences (e.g., being able to match the sound/k/with the letter “k”), phonemic awareness (e.g., segmenting the word “cat” into/k//a//t/), concepts about print (i.e., knowledge of reading conventions, text directionality, book structure), and early handwriting (writing letters and first words) (Molfese et al., 2011, Whitehurst and Lonigan, 1998). Research studies and syntheses consistently find that these early literacy skills predict reading development in the early grades (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). From this foundation of early literacy skills, fluent reading of connected text can develop (Oakhill & Cain, 2012). The ability to understand and derive meaning from text, namely sentence or reading comprehension, arises from the coming together of both reading and language skills (Scarborough, 2001). Thus, reading development is typically a complex process moving from letter and word level skills to reading for meaning (Joshi, Tao, Aaron, & Quiroz, 2012).

Exemplifying the counter-intuitive association between FMS and reading, FMS have played a minor role in studies on predictors of early literacy skills (c.f. National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). Accordingly, a justifiable question is whether FMS are linked to reading development theoretically. Aside from the obvious assertion that motor interaction with the world is a likely prerequisite for any form of cognitive development (Shapiro, 2011), it seems plausible that these may bridge the perceptual and cognitive sides of reading. We briefly elucidate three potential explanations for why FMS and reading skill might be linked, grouped into shared developmental and cognitive variables, functionalism, and shared internalized motor processes (Cameron et al., 2016, Penner-Wilger and Anderson, 2013, Suggate and Stoeger, 2017).

In younger kindergarten children, it is conceivable that early reading and FMS are correlated because children in this phase of life are undergoing development in a number of areas, encompassing cognitive, language, physical, and motor development (Luo et al., 2007; Suggate, Stoeger, & Pufke, 2016). Accordingly, a more mature general development might lead to greater FMS and reading skills, without meaningful links existing between reading and FMS, in and of themselves.

Cognitive variables play an important role in both reading development and FMS in kindergarten and the early grades. Previous work has identified skills such as: working memory (Preßler, Könen, Hasselhorn, & Krajewski, 2014), attention (Conners, 2009), intelligence (Ferrer, Shaywitz, Holahan, Marchione, & Shaywitz, 2010), executive functioning (Cartwright, 2012), and the ability to quickly associate names with objects (Kirby, Parrila, & Pfeiffer, 2003). In a meta-analysis by the National Early Literacy Panel (2008) in the US, amongst other cognitive variables, early reading was found to correlate with IQ, rapid naming, and phonological short-term memory.

Interestingly, many of the cognitive skills relating to early reading development—that is attention, working memory, IQ, and executive functioning (Cartwright, 2012, Conners, 2009, Ferrer et al., 2010, Preßler et al., 2014)—also appear associated with FMS (Becker et al., 2014, Davis et al., 2011, Dellatolas et al., 2003; but cf. Wassenberg et al., 2005). Presumably, such skills represent factors that influence both reading and FMS development. To ascertain whether unique links between FMS and reading exist, research needs to control for variables that relate to shared developmental and cognitive processes.

Children with greater FMS are likely better able to engage in environmental activities involving manipulating or exploring objects, which then opens up learning avenues previously closed to them (e.g., Iverson, 2010). Indeed, early puzzle play, which likely depends on FMS, links to spatial ability (Levine, Ratliff, Huttenlocher, & Cannon, 2012). Children with greater FMS are better able to represent and use fingers for calculating (Moeller et al., 2012), sorting and counting small objects, perhaps leading to links between FMS and mathematic skill (Fischer, Suggate, Schmirl, & Stoeger, 2018; Luo et al., 2007; Suggate, Stoeger, & Fisher, 2017). This position is termed functionalism (Penner-Wilger & Anderson, 2013), which postulates that better FMS enable children to engage in more learning activities that directly support cognitive and academic development (Suggate & Stoeger, 2017).

Specific to reading, according to functionalism having greater FMS may lead to greater engagement in grapho-motor activities, such as drawing or handwriting, which then improve reading. For children who can already decode, having greater grapho-motor skills presumably enables them to consolidate their reading skill through practicing their own handwriting (Wamain, Tallet, Zanone, & Longcamp, 2012). Indeed, children who have greater FMS, as measured by symbol or letter copying tasks perform better on literacy tasks (Cameron et al., 2012, Suggate et al., 2018). However, according to this account FMS only relate to reading to the extent that these result in the development of grapho-motor skills and then handwriting skills, because FMS in and of themselves do not directly relate to, and are not directly involved in reading − only grapho-motor and handwriting skills are. Research testing whether links between FMS and reading are completely mediated by grapho-motor and handwriting skills would test the functionalism hypothesis.

It has long been proposed that cognitive processes represent internalized motor actions (Inhelder & Piaget, 1968). More recently, in theories of embodied cognition, the idea has been advanced that motor and cognitive skills are stages along the same continuum (Glenberg and Gallese, 2012, Thelen, 2000). Recently, Anderson (2007) proposed that neural circuits can be redeployed to serve different functions to bolster cognitive processing (Penner-Wilger & Anderson, 2013). For example, when hearing words associated with “hand”, areas of the motor cortex associated with performing hand-actions are activated (Pulvermuller, 2005). Implicated networks for commonalities between cognitive/language and motor processing include the motor cortex, premotor-cortex, inferior frontal cortex, cerebellum, and mirror-neuron system (Diamond, 2000, Fischer and Zwaan, 2008, Pulvermuller, 2005). Taken together, these findings point to the possibility that FMS and cognitive or language skills might be linked via shared internalized motor processes, that utilize commonalties in neural circuitry.

According to a theory of shared internalized motor processes, FMS networks could be used to facilitate cognitive processing of reading-related information, thereby creating an advantage for children in reading if they have greater FMS. For example, such processing advantages have been found for vocabulary for children with greater FMS (Suggate and Stoeger, 2014, Suggate and Stoeger, 2017), itself an important early literacy skill (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). Consistent with the idea of shared internalized motor processes, letter and word processing has been found to recruit sensory-motor networks (James & Gauthier, 2006; Longcamp, Anton, Roth, & Velay, 2005; Wamain et al., 2012). It appears that greater fine motor involvement in skill acquisition leads to greater early literacy development. Thus, typing letters in comparison to handwriting results in less neural activation of word reading circuits in preliterate children (James & Engelhardt, 2012). Additionally, involving FMS while acquiring decoding skills can improve decoding skill acquisition (Suggate et al., 2016).

Thus, if shared internalized motor processes underlie both FMS and reading, then children with greater FMS should have an advantage in reading, after controlling for cognitive variables (shared developmental and cognitive processes) and grapho-motor and handwriting skills (functionalism).

Data from large-scale longitudinal studies indicate that FMS link to reading achievement. In one analysis using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study involving 11,803 kindergarten children, FMS linked uniquely to a reading composite measure administered at the end of grade 1, after controlling for age, SES, ethnic background, and earlier reading achievement (Son & Meisels, 2006). Grissmer et al. (2010) subsequently analysed the links between FMS and reading across three data sets, one of which was the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten 1998 Cohort. Findings indicate that FMS showed links to reading, after controlling for social and academic skills, and demographic factors. Building on previous work with the data from the Montreal Longitudinal Experimental Study (Duncan et al., 2007, Grissmer et al., 2010), Pagani et al. (2010) also found that kindergarten FMS predicted reading in grade 2. Finally, Dinehart and Manfra (2013) analysed data from the Miami-Dade School Readiness Project. Children included in their analyses (n= 3234) were tested in kindergarten and then grade-point averages and standard achievement tests were administered three years later in grade 2. Findings indicate that only FMS pertaining to handwriting, not object manipulation, uniquely predicted reading achievement scores in grade 2, thus indicating of functionalism.

In a study looking at FMS and reading in older children, Brookman et al. (2013) employed a diverse array of reading and FMS measures. In a cross-sectional study, 253 nine to ten year-old language and/or reading impaired children completed tasks pertaining to finger tapping, finger sequences, pegboard, and hand position imitation tasks. Reading tasks included decoding and reading comprehension measures. Findings indicated that FMS tasks related to decoding, reading fluency and comprehension. However, because control variables and handwriting skills were not included, it is difficult to ascertain whether FMS are uniquely linked to reading (i.e., shared developmental and cognitive processes).

In a further analysis using data from the Miami School Readiness Project, Manfra and colleagues examined links between preschool FMS and academic achievement in grade 3, four years later (Manfra et al., 2016). The 724 children were predominantly from non-white, ethnic minority backgrounds. Children’s writing and copying of letters and symbols in kindergarten predicted grade 3 reading, whereas fine motor manipulation did not once controlling for demographic variables, thus pointing towards functionalism.

Turning to studies more firmly rooted in kindergarten and grade 1, work has found evidence of positive correlations between FMS and word reading skill in Year 1 children in the UK (Pitchford, Papini, Outhwaite, & Gulliford, 2016). Although in their second study, Pitchford et al. (2016) measured non-verbal IQ and short-term memory alongside word reading and FMS, the small sample size (n = 34) did not allow them to control for these important covariates in their analyses. Further evidence for raw, uncontrolled correlations between FMS and reading has been found, whereby links were not significant for 5–6-year old children, but were for older 7 and 8-year olds (Kulp, 1999).

In a study with 127 children aged 4–7, Becker et al. (2014) tested links between FMS (i.e., visuo-motor integration), executive functions, early literacy skills, self-regulation, and academic achievement. Children’s FMS predicted an important early literacy skill, namely word-letter decoding, but did not relate to vocabulary, once controlling for age, gender, home language, maternal education, working memory, and behaviour regulation. An older study investigated the contribution of preschool FMS to reading in 245 grade 1 children (Vacc et al., 1987). Controlling for ethnic background, SES, and a subtest measuring children’s ability to sort objects, follow directions, and identify concepts, it was found that FMS, but not gross-motor skill, linked to a composite reading measure encompassing phonemic awareness, comprehension, and vocabulary.

Cameron et al. (2012) examined the contribution that FMS and executive functioning made to kindergarten reading achievement in 213 children. Diverse aspects of emergent literacy and early reading achievement were examined differentially, namely, decoding skill, reading comprehension, sound awareness (i.e., phonemic awareness), and vocabulary. FMS showed small correlations with sound awareness and reading comprehension at entry into kindergarten. In a correlational study conducted on kindergarten children, links between FMS and the early reading skills of 144 children were tested, controlling for IQ and attention (Suggate et al., 2018). FMS related uniquely only to handwriting skill, not to early word reading and letter naming. However, when grapho-motor skill was added into the regression analyses, FMS ceased to be a predictor even of handwriting skill, again pointing towards functionalism.

Although it appears that, on average, FMS predicts reading development in elementary school, few of these studies adequately controlled for cognitive variables important in determining unique links (cf. Cameron et al., 2012, Suggate et al., 2018). Moreover, four studies found that grapho-motor skills explained away links between FMS and reading (Cameron et al., 2012, Dinehart and Manfra, 2013, Manfra et al., 2016, Suggate et al., 2018), thus calling into question the unique contribution that FMS make to reading in elementary school. Finally, none of the studies employed cross-lagged longitudinal analyses, which are sensitive to detecting unique links in developmental datasets (Little, Preacher, Selig, & Card, 2007).

There is an increasing body of evidence indicating that FMS are important for academic and cognitive skills. However, with regard to reading, the picture is somewhat more confused. On the one hand, large-scale longitudinal studies extending into elementary school indicate that links exist (Grissmer et al., 2010, Manfra et al., 2016, Pagani et al., 2010). On the other hand, differentiated work with respect to early reading skills conducted in kindergarten samples and controlling for key cognitive variables tends to suggest that FMS relate to reading when the former involve pencil operation and/or symbol copying (Brookman et al., 2013, Cameron et al., 2012, Suggate et al., 2018).

At a theoretical level, it is possible that this confused picture arises because previous research may not have examined links between early reading and FMS in a sufficiently differentiated manner while controlling for key cognitive variables. Based on indications from previous research (Cameron et al., 2012, National Early Literacy Panel, 2008), control variables need to include measures of IQ, early literacy skills, and executive functions (Cameron et al., 2012, Martzog, 2015, National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). Further, no study to date has tested for cross-lagged effects between reading and FMS, which, in addition to including control variables, is an important design feature that has particular relevance for determining patterns consistent with causality. If a unique cross-lagged effect from FMS at an earlier point in time exists to reading at a later point in time, but not from earlier reading to later FMS, then findings would make it unlikely that (parallel) shared developmental and cognitive processes were driving the link between FMS and reading.

Further, research is needed that allows differentiation between the hypotheses pertaining to functionalism and shared internalized motor processes. According to functionalism, the link between FMS and reading should be mediated via grapho-motor and handwriting skills. Specifically, FMS should support the development of grapho-motor skills, which in turn lead to production of letters (writing skills), which subsequently support reading development (Suggate et al., 2016). However, should shared internalized motor processes be responsible for (some of) the link between FMS and reading, even after accounting for the mediators proposed by functionalism, a direct link between earlier FMS and later reading should remain. Four previous studies found that grapho-motor variables rendered FMS redundant as predictors of reading (Cameron et al., 2012, Dinehart and Manfra, 2013, Manfra et al., 2016, Suggate et al., 2018), however, these studies have not included a longitudinal mediator design that allows for a more direct test of functionalism.

Therefore, we conducted a study building on the work of Cameron et al. (2012) and Suggate et al. (2018) that pursued three research questions:

  • (a)

    Do cross-lagged paths exist between kindergarten FMS and reading in grade 1, after accounting for parallel paths between FMS and reading from kindergarten to grade 1, and the cross-lagged path from kindergarten reading to FMS in grade 1 (i.e., a fully cross-lagged design)?

  • (b)

    Does adding the cognitive control variables improve the model in step 1 and explain away any cross-lagged link between kindergarten FMS and grade 1 reading (shared developmental and cognitive variables vs. shared internalized motor processes)?

  • (c)

    Does adding a mediation path from kindergarten FMS to grade 1 reading, via kindergarten grapho-motor and then handwriting skills, improve the model and explain away any cross-lagged link between kindergarten FMS and grade 1 reading (functionalism vs shared internalized motor processes)?

Section snippets

Participants

The participants were 120 children aged 6;2 (SD = 3.22 months) attending their final year of kindergarten at the beginning of the study1 and were tested 9.47 (SD = .70) months later at time 2. Participants lived in or near a small city in southern Germany with a population of approximately 150,000 people. Thirteen kindergartens participated with between two and 20

Descriptive statistics

In Table 1, Table 2, the descriptive statistics for children’s performance on the FMS, early reading, IQ, executive functions, early literacy skills, and grapho-motor skills are reported. The data presented in Table 1, Table 2 indicate that the children constituted, on average, a normally achieving and representative sample with regard to measures reporting standard scores (M = 10, SD = 3), namely the FMS measures, both in kindergarten and in grade 1, and receptive and expressive vocabulary.

Discussion

In the current study, we utilised a longitudinal cross-panel design to test the unique contribution of kindergarten FMS to reading development in grade 1. To determine the uniqueness of FMS contribution over and above that predicted by the shared developmental and cognitive variables, we set two criteria, firstly, that FMS should contribute to later reading development, and secondly, links should exist after controlling for key hypothesized cognitive covariates. Accordingly, we controlled for a

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