Preparatory A (from 2+). Lesson 16

In our Pedagogy class today we will learn a little about...

Stages of Development of Fine Motor Skills and Both Hands coordination. Something That Both Teachers and Parents Should Be Aware Of.

The development of the awareness of the fingers

As was mentioned earlier, a child's fingers become independent and require further development as early as the age of two. I hope you already witness it with your own eyes with your little tot.

Usually, a child can count his fingers and give them names, but he does this slowly, out loud or repeating the sequence to himself.

For a more effective development of this skill we need to follow the practice of temporarily connecting the fingers to the names of the notes. So, on the right hand, the fingers from thumb to little finger are called, for example–Do Re Mi Fa and So.

At school and at home, teachers and parents should conduct regular exercises in regard to the awareness of each finger.

Practice *optional*:  If your child still having problems with his fingers awareness you can buy play-doh and make holes in it–a little 'house' for each finger. Put the child's fingers in them and ask one or another of the fingers, 'to come out of it's house' as finger Door, Rain, Mirror etc.  This is another fun and creative way to build your child fingers' awareness.

Playing, using the Gentle Piano program, requires first and foremost from the child, the formation of hand-eye coordination. Only after that, your child will be able to focus on the next task: fingering or controlling his fine motor skills.

Fingering Management

When toddlers are just starting to learn, any fingering is correct.

Our first objective is to establish, in the child, simultaneous operation of his vision, hearing, motor skills and voice, so that he can easily find the note and the corresponding key, to hear the sound and to sing the notes correctly.

As long as the child plays from note to note, and the time 'temperature' he is searching exceeds the number of notes played, we must understand that the hand-eye coordination of the child is still in the development stage. Do not ask your child to use the proper fingering at this stage!

Moreover, it is better to give the child the opportunity to listen to the whole piece, but work on a small fragment. For children, with serious difficulties with developing coordination, one to three notes can be chosen to work on.

The main rule here is–reasonable gradualism. You do not give your child breakfast, lunch and dinner at the same time, once a day, do you?

Teaching fingering notation to younger preschool age children, at the beginning of working on a piece, is a task that is not only difficult to achieve, but it is also completely useless. As was mentioned earlier, the selection of comfortable sequence of fingering should be the conscious action of the little one himself.

We are preparing in advance for the child to be able to correctly choose which fingers to use, with the help of working on the awareness of the names of the fingers, games exercises and the pieces of Gentle Piano. As soon as the child develops fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, he easily finds the 'right' fingers himself, or is willingly to listen to our advice, about which fingering to use.

It is necessary to overcome 'the traditional music teaching syndrome' and allow your child to use whichever finger he feels comfortable with. Patience is required to wait till the toddler wants to change something and to include all the remaining fingers in his playing.

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