Micro skills
I've found this come up a couple of times recently, so I thought I would write about it. Now, the term 'micro skills' is totally my invention, but I think it's a pretty useful idea. Let me explain.
In teaching my children who arrived in our family with less than wonderful experiences, we've done our share of catching up. I know I've written a lot about how important it is to allow a child to go back and experience things that they might have missed. Without this important base, learning becomes significantly more difficult. I've discovered that there is a little more to it than just handing your child the same toys your infants and toddlers enjoyed, and thinking all will be well.
There is a huge difference between how a child who has always known love and stability in an enriched environment learns, and how a child with a hard and impoverished background learns. Merely supplying the toys, time, and experiences is not enough. Our emotionally healthy children had been primed from Day 1 to learn. Emotional connections were being made, which led to healthy brain development. Chances to move and explore were provided from the beginning, also allowing for healthy brain development. Loving and caring adults intuitively scaffolded the baby's and toddler's initial efforts to do something new, also allowing for healthy brain development. Because of all of the external forces, an older pre-schooler from a healthy environment is a virtual learning machine. They are curious and able to intuit connections. Learning often comes very easily.
Let's contrast a child who does not start life with all of these benefits. Lack of a caring adult, lack of opportunities to explore and use their bodies, and lack of outside scaffolding in the earliest years all combine to create a brain which is set firmly in survival mode. This is understandable, and often this brain primed for survival is exactly what keeps that child alive. However, it is not what is going to allow a child to be curious and learn new things. The ability to make and intuit connections is just not there.
This, though, is not immediately obvious to the new parents. We are used to children learning new things so naturally, that we miss out on all the different pieces of the learning puzzle which are in place, and of which we are not aware.
Let me give you an example: writing letters. My children who started out in my home been surrounded by print all their lives. They have been read to, watched us read, and been made aware of the letters in their world from a very early age. Coupled with that is the development of fine motor skills. They watch us write, they are handed crayons at an early age, and by the time we even think about asking them to trace a letter, hours of writing experience have occurred. In a sense, they have spent years practicing for that first attempt at tracing a letter. While the first attempt is often more than a little shaky, it doesn't take long before enough control and understanding has happened to allow for recognizable letters to develop.
Compare that with my child who on top of all the environmental factors also navigates the world with a severely compromised brain. Asking her to trace a letter would be about as useful an exercise as handing a baby a pencil and asking the same thing. There might be marks on the paper, but absolutely no meaning or control or intention behind them. We had to back up significantly.
Because of the lack of ability to intuit connections, I had to be the one to figure out all the often invisible steps to a healthy child learning something. We may not see these steps, and they may not take a long time to pass through, but they need to happen before a skill can be learned. Let's go back to tracing letters.
Before we could work on tracing letters, we had to back up to just scribbling and getting used to holding a crayon. To avoid having to go back and have to undo something, I started off using only crayon rocks. They help to avoid holding a crayon in the fist, and help to develop a proper pencil hold. As with so many things that are good for her, this child did not appreciate the crayon rocks. (I actually love to use them, as the colors are gorgeous and they are very smooth to use.) Once I was sure that we had a good chance of holding the crayon correctly, we moved to regular crayons.
The next step was developing freedom in the arms. I noticed that when she did color, she used little itty-bitty, teeny-tiny, little strokes, and whatever she was drawing or coloring took up just a couple square inches of paper. If you are so tight in your coloring, you will most likely be tight in your writing. There is not freedom of movement, and your hand is almost trapped in its little two inch area. So we spent time working on drawing bigger things on bigger pieces of paper. (The other plus is that anything that consistently crossed the child's midline is good for the brain, and helps to integrate it.) Once again, this was not a popular activity, but it is one we are still working on.
Our next step, and one we practiced over the past year, was to trace a line moving from left to right. This was almost too hard at first, and I had to do a lot of holding her hand as we traced the line. Eventually, she could do it on her own, and pretty much stay on the line as well. From there we went to tracing left to right lines which were not straight. This was trickier. We also worked on tracing circles and squares of different sizes. All of these things prepare a child to trace, and ultimately write letters. Letters are written from left to write, they involve straight lines, they involves curves, they involves corners, but they do all of this at one time. Some children need smaller pieces and enough time to practice each of these tiny pieces for long enough as they build the coordination and muscle memory. They need practice perfecting these micro skills before we can even begin to ask them to do something more complex.
This year, we will practice writing four letters. Just four, because more than that will be too overwhelming. The four I have chosen are the four letters in one of her names. These are important letters, and often the letters in a child's name are the ones a child first gravitates toward. I will have to gravitate to these letters for her. We will also spend the first part of the year at least not using a pencil, but tracing them in sand. By doing this, there will be more sensory input involved with making the letters and less chance to have mistakes. We'll see how it goes. I'm alternately hopeful and despairing depending on the day.
I know that this child of mine is an extreme example. We have to break down everything we teach her into its very smallest component and work on it one tiny step at a time... putting her napkin away at dinner, putting her clothes away (boy, is that still a work in progress), getting dressed, brushing her hair. Everything. But I also think that many children from hard places, while not as extreme, need help in sorting out the different steps involved in anything they are attempting, and then be allowed to practice each of these micro skills before being asked to do a bigger, more expected skill. Sometimes we just need to be their brain making the connections for them until they can do it for themselves.
Is your child struggling with something? Take a moment and think of all the tiny steps involved in whatever they are trying to do. Can your child do each of these steps? It is worth thinking about.
In teaching my children who arrived in our family with less than wonderful experiences, we've done our share of catching up. I know I've written a lot about how important it is to allow a child to go back and experience things that they might have missed. Without this important base, learning becomes significantly more difficult. I've discovered that there is a little more to it than just handing your child the same toys your infants and toddlers enjoyed, and thinking all will be well.
There is a huge difference between how a child who has always known love and stability in an enriched environment learns, and how a child with a hard and impoverished background learns. Merely supplying the toys, time, and experiences is not enough. Our emotionally healthy children had been primed from Day 1 to learn. Emotional connections were being made, which led to healthy brain development. Chances to move and explore were provided from the beginning, also allowing for healthy brain development. Loving and caring adults intuitively scaffolded the baby's and toddler's initial efforts to do something new, also allowing for healthy brain development. Because of all of the external forces, an older pre-schooler from a healthy environment is a virtual learning machine. They are curious and able to intuit connections. Learning often comes very easily.
Let's contrast a child who does not start life with all of these benefits. Lack of a caring adult, lack of opportunities to explore and use their bodies, and lack of outside scaffolding in the earliest years all combine to create a brain which is set firmly in survival mode. This is understandable, and often this brain primed for survival is exactly what keeps that child alive. However, it is not what is going to allow a child to be curious and learn new things. The ability to make and intuit connections is just not there.
This, though, is not immediately obvious to the new parents. We are used to children learning new things so naturally, that we miss out on all the different pieces of the learning puzzle which are in place, and of which we are not aware.
Let me give you an example: writing letters. My children who started out in my home been surrounded by print all their lives. They have been read to, watched us read, and been made aware of the letters in their world from a very early age. Coupled with that is the development of fine motor skills. They watch us write, they are handed crayons at an early age, and by the time we even think about asking them to trace a letter, hours of writing experience have occurred. In a sense, they have spent years practicing for that first attempt at tracing a letter. While the first attempt is often more than a little shaky, it doesn't take long before enough control and understanding has happened to allow for recognizable letters to develop.
Compare that with my child who on top of all the environmental factors also navigates the world with a severely compromised brain. Asking her to trace a letter would be about as useful an exercise as handing a baby a pencil and asking the same thing. There might be marks on the paper, but absolutely no meaning or control or intention behind them. We had to back up significantly.
Because of the lack of ability to intuit connections, I had to be the one to figure out all the often invisible steps to a healthy child learning something. We may not see these steps, and they may not take a long time to pass through, but they need to happen before a skill can be learned. Let's go back to tracing letters.
Before we could work on tracing letters, we had to back up to just scribbling and getting used to holding a crayon. To avoid having to go back and have to undo something, I started off using only crayon rocks. They help to avoid holding a crayon in the fist, and help to develop a proper pencil hold. As with so many things that are good for her, this child did not appreciate the crayon rocks. (I actually love to use them, as the colors are gorgeous and they are very smooth to use.) Once I was sure that we had a good chance of holding the crayon correctly, we moved to regular crayons.
The next step was developing freedom in the arms. I noticed that when she did color, she used little itty-bitty, teeny-tiny, little strokes, and whatever she was drawing or coloring took up just a couple square inches of paper. If you are so tight in your coloring, you will most likely be tight in your writing. There is not freedom of movement, and your hand is almost trapped in its little two inch area. So we spent time working on drawing bigger things on bigger pieces of paper. (The other plus is that anything that consistently crossed the child's midline is good for the brain, and helps to integrate it.) Once again, this was not a popular activity, but it is one we are still working on.
Our next step, and one we practiced over the past year, was to trace a line moving from left to right. This was almost too hard at first, and I had to do a lot of holding her hand as we traced the line. Eventually, she could do it on her own, and pretty much stay on the line as well. From there we went to tracing left to right lines which were not straight. This was trickier. We also worked on tracing circles and squares of different sizes. All of these things prepare a child to trace, and ultimately write letters. Letters are written from left to write, they involve straight lines, they involves curves, they involves corners, but they do all of this at one time. Some children need smaller pieces and enough time to practice each of these tiny pieces for long enough as they build the coordination and muscle memory. They need practice perfecting these micro skills before we can even begin to ask them to do something more complex.
This year, we will practice writing four letters. Just four, because more than that will be too overwhelming. The four I have chosen are the four letters in one of her names. These are important letters, and often the letters in a child's name are the ones a child first gravitates toward. I will have to gravitate to these letters for her. We will also spend the first part of the year at least not using a pencil, but tracing them in sand. By doing this, there will be more sensory input involved with making the letters and less chance to have mistakes. We'll see how it goes. I'm alternately hopeful and despairing depending on the day.
I know that this child of mine is an extreme example. We have to break down everything we teach her into its very smallest component and work on it one tiny step at a time... putting her napkin away at dinner, putting her clothes away (boy, is that still a work in progress), getting dressed, brushing her hair. Everything. But I also think that many children from hard places, while not as extreme, need help in sorting out the different steps involved in anything they are attempting, and then be allowed to practice each of these micro skills before being asked to do a bigger, more expected skill. Sometimes we just need to be their brain making the connections for them until they can do it for themselves.
Is your child struggling with something? Take a moment and think of all the tiny steps involved in whatever they are trying to do. Can your child do each of these steps? It is worth thinking about.
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Sana