Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Defining the relationship between fine motor visual-spatial integration and reading and spelling

  • Published:
Reading and Writing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

New research suggests that mechanisms involved in fine motor skills play an important role in reading and writing development. Extending past work that focused on fine motor skills measured in adolescence, the present study followed children longitudinally from ages 5 to 7 to examine early literacy and associated sets of fine motor skills, including visual-spatial integration and specfically grapho-motor skills. The current sample of 883 children (Mage = 6.78) from 80 geographically dispersed schools in Singapore was administered the Inventory of Early Development—3rd Edition (IED-III Standardised) assessment, to assess their visual-spatial integration and grapho-motor skills, and the Wide Range Abilities Test, 4th Edition (WRAT-4) to evaluate their reading as well as spelling in English. After controlling for age, maternal education, non-verbal intelligence, verbal memory, and inhibitory control, grapho-motor skill explained significant unique variance in reading (6%) and in spelling (3%) performance. This corroborates the role fine motor processes play in early literacy development in the context of Singapore, where there is less emphasis on non-academic skills even at an early age. Knowing the association of grapho-motor skills with these two literacy domains suggests potential avenues for improving future pedagogies for literacy skills.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adolph, K., Tamis-Lemonda, C., & Karasik, L. (2010). Cinderella indeed - a commentary on iverson’s ’Developing language in a developing body: the relationship between motor development and language development. Journal Child Language, 37, 269–273. https://doi.org/10.1017/S030500090999047X.

  • Bart, O., Hajami, D., & Bar-Haim, Y. (2007). Predicting school adjustment from motor abilities in kindergarten. Infant and Child Development, 16, 597–615. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.514.

  • Bautista, A., Habib, M., Eng, A., & Bull, R. (2019). Purposeful play during learning centre time: from curriculum to practice. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 51(5), 715–736

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Becker, D. R., Miao, A., Duncan, R., & McClelland, M. M. (2014). Behavioral self-regulation and executive function both predict visuomotor skills and early academic achievement. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29(4), 411–424.

  • Bhide, A. (2018). Copying helps novice learners build orthographic knowledge: Methods for teaching Devanagari akshara. Reading and Writing, 31(1), 1–33

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bourke, L., Davies, S. J., Sumner, E., & Green, C. (2014). Individual differences in the development of early writing skills: Testing the unique contribution of visuo–spatial working memory. Reading and Writing, 27(2), 315–335.

  • Brown, T. A. (2006). Confirmatory factor analysis for applied research. New York: Guilford Publications.

  • Bruininks, R. H., & Bruininks, B. D. (2005). Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: NCS Pearson.

  • Byrne, B. M. (2010). Structural equation modeling with Amos: Basic concepts, applications, and programming. (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cadoret, G., Bigras, N., Duval, S., Lemay, L., Tremblay, T., & Lemire, J. (2018). The mediating role of cognitive ability on the relationship between motor proficiency and early academic achievement in children. Human Movement Science, 57, 149–157

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cartwright, K. B. (2012). Insights from cognitive neuroscience: The importance of executive function for early reading development and education. Early Education and Development, 23, 24–36.

  • Cameron, C. E., Brock, L. L., Murrah, W. M., Bell, L. H., Worzalla, S. L., Grissmer, D., & Morrison, F. J. (2012). Fine motor skills and executive function both contribute to kindergarten achievement. Child Development, 83(4), 1229–1244

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cameron, C. E., Cottone, E. A., Murrah, W. M., & Grissmer, D. W. (2016). How are motor skills linked to children’s school performance and academic achievement? Child Development Perspectives, 10(2), 93–98

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, A. G., Rowe, E., & Curby, T. W. (2013). Disentangling fine motor skills’ relations to academic achievement: the relative contributions of visual-spatial integration and visual-motor coordination. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 174(5), 514–533

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chung, K. K. H., Lam, C. B., & Cheung, K. C. (2018). Visuomotor integration and executive functioning are uniquely linked to Chinese word reading and writing in kindergarten children. Reading and Writing, 31(1), 155–171

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155–159

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Conners, F. A. (2009). Attentional control and the simple view of reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 22, 591–613.

  • Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1991). Tracking the unique effects of print exposure in children: Associations with vocabulary, general knowledge, and spelling. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83(2), 264–274

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diamond, A. (2000). Close interrelation of motor development and cognitive development and of the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. Child Development, 71, 44–56.

  • Ferrer, E., McArdle, J. J., Shaywitz, B. A., Holahan, J. M., Marchione, K. & Shaywitz, S. E. (2007). Longitudinal models of developmental dynamics between reading and cognition from childhood to adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 43, 1460–1473.

  • Floyer-Lea, A., & Matthews, P. M. (2004). Changing brain networks for visuo-motor control with increased movement automaticity. Journal of Neurophysiology, 92(4), 2405–2412. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.01092.2003

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • French, B. F. (2013). Brigance inventory of early development, (IED-III): IED III standardization and validation manual. Curriculum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • George, D., & Mallery, P. (2016). IBM SPSS statistics 23 step by step: A simple guide and reference. (13th ed.). Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gonzalez, S. L., Alvarez, V., & Nelson, E. L. (2019). Do gross and fine motor skills differentially contribute to language outcomes? A systematic review. Frontiers in psychology, 10, 2670.

  • Grissmer, D., Grimm, K. J., Aiyer, S. M., Murrah, W. M., & Steele, J. S. (2010). Fine motor skills and early comprehension of the world: two new school readiness indicators. Developmental psychology, 46(5), 1008.

  • Iverson, J. M. (2010). Developing language in a developing body: The relationship between motor development and language development. Journal of Child Language, 37, 229–261. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000909990432

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kalindi, S. C., McBride, C., Tong, X., Wong, N. L. Y., Chung, K. H. K., & Lee, C. Y. (2015). Beyond phonological and morphological processing: pure copying as a marker of dyslexia in Chinese but not poor reading of English. Annals of Dyslexia, 65(2), 53–68

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Khng, K. H., & Ng, E. L. (2021). Fine motor and executive functioning skills predict math and spelling skills at the start of kindergarten: A compensatory account. Journal for the Study of Education and Development, 1–44.

  • Kong, M. Y. (2020). The association between children’s common Chinese stroke errors and spelling ability. Reading and Writing, 33(3), 635–670

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kopp, B., Mattler, U., & Rist, F. (1994). Selective attention and response competition in schizophrenic patients. Psychiatry Research, 53(2), 129–139

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Larson-Hall, J. (2015). A guide to doing statistics in second language research using SPSS and R. Routledge

  • Lam, S. S. Y., & McBride, C. (2018). Learning to write: The role of handwriting for Chinese spelling in kindergarten children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 110(7), 917

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Maas, C., & Hox, J. (2005). Sufficient sample sizes for multilevel modeling. Methodology, 1, 86–92

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McBride-Chang, C., Chung, K. K., & Tong, X. (2011). Copying skills in relation to word reading and writing in Chinese children with and without dyslexia. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 110(3), 422–433

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McClelland, M. M., & Cameron, C. E. (2019). Developing together: The role of executive function and motor skills in children’s early academic lives. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 46, 142–151.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • National Early Literacy Panel. (2008). Developing early literacy: A scientific synthesis of early literacy development and implications for intervention. Jessups, ML: National Institute for Literacy & The Partnership for Reading.

  • Ng, E. L., O’Brien, B. A., Khng, K. H., Poon, K. L. K., Karuppiah, N., Bull, R., Pang, E., Lee, K., Hwee, L. M., Tan, C. T., Tan, G. H. (2014). Singapore kindergarten impact project (SKIP). OER 09/14RB, Office of Education Research, National Institute of Education, Singapore.

  • Oberer, N., Gashaj, V., & Roebers, C. M. (2017). Motor skills in kindergarten: Internal structure, cognitive correlates and relationships to background variables. Human Movement Science, 52, 170–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Brien, B. A., Mohamed, M. B. H., Yussof, N. T., & Ng, S. C. (2019). The phonological awareness relation to early reading in English for three groups of simultaneous bilingual children. Reading and Writing, 32(4), 909–937.

  • Pagani, L. S., Fitzpatrick, C., Archambault, I., & Janosz, M. (2010). School readiness and later achievement: a French Canadian replication and extension. Developmental psychology, 46(5), 984.

  • Pickering, S., & Gathercole, S. E. (2001). Working memory test battery for children (WMTB-C). Psychological Corporation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Preßler, A.-L., Könen, T., Hasselhorn, M. & Krajewski, K. (2014). Cognitive preconditions of early reading and spelling: A latent-variable approach with longitudinal data. Reading and Writing, 27, 383–406. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-013-9449-0.

  • Raven, J. (2003). Raven progressive matrices. In Handbook of nonverbal assessment (pp. 223–237). Springer.

  • Singapore Department of Statistics (2019) Singapore census of population, 2019: literacy and language (Advance Data Release No. 3). On WWW at https://www.singstat.gov.sg/find-data/search-by-theme/population/population-and-population-structure/latest-data. Accessed 12 Feb 2020.

  • Son, S. H., & Meisels, S. J. (2006). The relationship of young children's motor skills to later reading and math achievement. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 52(4), 755–778.

  • Suggate, S., Pufke, E., & Stoeger, H. (2018). Do fine motor skills contribute to early reading development? Journal of Research in Reading, 41(1), 1–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suggate, S., Pufke, E., & Stoeger, H. (2019). Children’s fine motor skills in kindergarten predict reading in grade 1. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 47, 248–258

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Suggate, S. P., Stoeger, H., & Fischer, U. (2017). Fine motor skills predict finger-based numerical skills in preschoolers. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 124, 1085–1106. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031512517727405

  • Wang, Y., McBride-Chang, C., & Chan, S. F. (2014). Correlates of Chinese kindergarteners’ word reading and writing: The unique role of copying skills. Reading and Writing, 27(7), 1281–1302

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang, Y., Yin, L., & McBride, C. (2015). Unique predictors of early reading and writing: A 1-year longitudinal study of Chinese kindergarteners. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 32, 51–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, G. S., & Robertson, G. J. (2006). Wide range achievement test (WRAT4). Psychological Assessment Resources.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yao, S.-Y., Munez, D., Bull, R., Lee, K., Khng, K. H., & Poon, K. (2017). Rasch modeling of the test of early mathematics ability – third edition with a sample of K1 children in Singapore. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment 35, 615–627. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282916651021

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Education Research Funding Programme, National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, project no. OER 09/14RB. The views expressed in this paper are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of NIE.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore, 637616, Singapore

    Malikka Begum Habib Mohamed & Beth A. O’Brien

  2. Centre for Research and Development in Learning, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Beth A. O’Brien

Authors
  1. Malikka Begum Habib Mohamed
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Beth A. O’Brien
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Beth A. O’Brien.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mohamed, M.B.H., O’Brien, B.A. Defining the relationship between fine motor visual-spatial integration and reading and spelling. Read Writ 35, 877–898 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10165-2

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10165-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation