What are Gross motor skills?

Gross motor skills are the abilities required in order to control the large muscles of the body for walking, running, sitting, crawling, and other activities.

Motor skills are actions that involve the movement of muscles in the body. They are divided into two groups: gross motor skills, which are the larger movements of arms, legs, feet, or the entire body (crawling, running, and jumping); and fine motor skills , which are smaller actions, such as grasping an object between the thumb and a finger or using the lips and tongue to taste objects. Motor skills usually develop together since many activities depend on the coordination of gross and fine motor skills. Gross motor skills develop over a relatively short period of time. Most development occurs during childhood. However, soldiers, some athletes, and others who engage in activities requiring high degrees of endurance may spend years improving their level of muscle and body coordination and gross motor skills.

Encouraging gross motor skills requires a safe, open play space, peers to interact with, and some adult supervision. Promoting the development of gross motor abilities is considerably less complicated than developing fine motor skills. Helping a child succeed in gross motor tasks requires patience and opportunities for a child to practice desired skills. Children reach developmental milestones at different rates. Pushing a child to perform a task that is impossible due to development status promotes frustration and disappointment. Children should be allowed to acquire motor skills at their own paces.

There are a number of activities parents can have children do to help develop gross motor skills. These include:
• playing hopscotch and jumping rope; activities that help children learn balance
• hitting, catching, kicking, or throwing a ball, such as a baseball, football, or soccer ball; activities that help develop hand-eye or foot-eye coordination
• kangaroo hop, in which children hold something, such as a small ball or orange, between their knees and then jump with their feet together frontward, backwards, and sideways
• playing wheelbarrow, in which someone holds the children's legs while they walk on their hands along a specific route
• walking on a narrow bar or curb, while holding a bulky object in one hand, then the other hand, and then repeating the activity walking backwards and sideways
• toss and catch, in which children toss an object, such as a baseball, in the air and then catch it, while sitting or lying down and also while using alternate hands

Infancy
The first gross motor skill infants learn usually is to lift their heads and shoulders before they can sit up, which, in turn, precedes standing and walking. Lifting the head is usually followed by head control. Although they are born with virtually no head or neck control, most infants can lift their heads to a 45-degree angle by the age of four to six weeks, and they can lift both their head and chest at an average age of eight weeks. Most infants can turn their heads to both sides within 16 to 20 weeks and lift their heads while lying on their backs within 24 to 28 weeks. By about nine to 10 months, most infants can sit up unassisted for substantial periods of time with both hands free for playing.

One of the major tasks in gross motor development is locomotion, the ability to move from one place to another. Infants progress gradually from rolling (eight to 10 weeks) to creeping on their stomachs and dragging their legs behind them (six to nine months) to actual crawling (seven to 12 months). While infants are learning these temporary means of locomotion, they are gradually becoming able to support increasing amounts of weight while in a standing position. In the second half-year of life, babies begin pulling themselves up on furniture and other stationary objects. By the ages of 28 to 54 weeks, on average, they begin navigating a room in an upright position by holding on to the furniture to keep their balance. Eventually, they are able to walk while holding on to an adult with both hands and then with only one. They usually take their first uncertain steps alone between the ages of 36 and 64 weeks and are competent walkers by the ages of 12 to 18 months.

Toddlerhood
Toddlers are usually very active physically. By the age of two years, children have begun to develop a variety of gross motor skills. They can run fairly well and negotiate stairs holding on to a banister with one hand and putting both feet on each step before going on to the next one. Most infants this age climb (some very actively) and have a rudimentary ability to kick and throw a ball. By the age of three, children walk with good posture and without watching their feet. They can also walk backwards and run with enough control for sudden stops or changes of direction. They can hop, stand on one foot, and negotiate the rungs of a jungle gym. They can walk up stairs alternating feet but usually still walk down putting both feet on each step. Other achievements include riding a tricycle and throwing a ball, although they have trouble catching it because they hold their arms out in front of their bodies no matter what direction the ball comes from.

Preschool
Four-year-olds can typically balance or hop on one foot, jump forward and backward over objects, and climb and descend stairs alternating feet. They can bounce and catch balls and throw accurately. Some four-year-olds can also skip. Children this age have gained an increased degree of self-consciousness about their motor activities that leads to increased feelings of pride and success when they master a new skill. However, it can also create feelings of inadequacy when they think they have failed. This concern with success can also lead them to try daring activities beyond their abilities, so they need to be monitored especially carefully.

School age
School-age children, who are not going through the rapid, unsettling growth spurts of early childhood or adolescence , are quite skilled at controlling their bodies and are generally good at a wide variety of physical activities, although the ability varies according to the level of maturation and the physique of a child. Motor skills are mostly equal in boys and girls at this stage, except that boys have more forearm strength and girls have greater flexibility. Five-year-olds can skip, jump rope, catch a bounced ball, walk on their tiptoes, balance on one foot for over eight seconds, and engage in beginning acrobatics. Many can even ride a small two-wheel bicycle. Eight- and nine-year-olds typically can ride a bicycle, swim, roller skate, ice skate, jump rope, scale fences, use a saw, hammer, and garden tools, and play a variety of sports . However, many of the sports prized by adults, often scaled down for play by children, require higher levels of distance judgment and hand-eye coordination , as well as quicker reaction times, than are reasonable for middle childhood. Games that are well suited to the motor skills of elementary school-age children include kick ball, dodge ball, and team relay races.

In adolescence, children develop increasing coordination and motor ability. They also gain greater physical strength and prolonged endurance. Adolescents are able to develop better distance judgment and hand-eye coordination than their younger counterparts. With practice, they can master the skills necessary for adult sports.

Common problems

There are a range of diseases and disorders that affect gross motor skill development and skills. Among young persons, developmental problems such as genetic disorders, muscular dystrophy , cerebral palsy , and some neurological conditions adversely impact gross motor skill development.

Gross motor skills can become impaired in a variety of ways, including injury, illness, stroke , and congenital deformities. Developmental coordination disorder affects motor skills. A person with this disorder has a hard time with skills such as riding a bike, holding a pencil, and throwing a ball. People with this disorder are often called clumsy. Their movements are slow and awkward. People with developmental coordination disorder may also have a hard time completing tasks that involve movement of muscle groups in sequence. For example, such a person might be unable to do the following in order: open a closet door, get out a jacket, and put it on. It is thought that up to 6 percent of children may have developmental coordination disorder, according to the 2002 issue of the annual journal Clinical Reference Systems . The symptoms usually go unnoticed until the early years of elementary school; the disorder is usually diagnosed in children who are between five and 11 years old.

Children with any one or combination of developmental coordination disorder symptoms should be seen by a pediatrician who specializes in motor skills development delays. There are many ways to address gross motor skills impairment, such as physical therapy. This type of therapy can include treating the underlying cause, strengthening muscles, and teaching ways to compensate for impaired movements.

When to Worry?
Parents, teachers, and primary caregivers need to have a clear understanding of how young children develop gross motor skills and the timetable for development of the skills. The Lincoln-Oseretsky Motor Development Scale is an individually administered test that assesses the development of motor skills in children and adults. Areas covered include fine and gross motor skills, finger dexterity and speed, and hand-eye coordination. The test consists of 36 tasks arranged in order of increasing difficulty. These include walking backwards, standing on one foot, touching one's nose, jumping over a rope, throwing and catching a ball, putting coins in a box, jumping and clapping, balancing on tiptoe while opening and closing one's hands, and balancing a rod vertically. Norms have been established for each part of the test for children aged six to 14. When in doubt ask. There is never anything worry in asking questions.

Have a great weekend!

There is never enough practice in math for money. I have no memory for learning money or coin value growing up, I just know that I'm asked all the time how to help and build those money skills. I think in many times our math move faster than many kids are ready to move. Some need more practice other need that practice that always be part of their day as review.

For me, money practice can from my weekly allowance--sometimes I would try it get it twice week but there were times when the bank would have to owe me as well. (That didn't work out so well.) Summer is a great time for kids to work with coins plus gain some responsibility.

In class, I have set up a classroom bank and charged students for everything from borrowing pencils to renting the chair they are sitting in.

Ok some ground rules.

In either event, before they get an allowance, a child should be old enough to count money. The key to a successful allowance is structuring it right from the outset.

Make it clear to your children what kinds of expenditures the money is for, and that they are expected to save some of it. Younger children - ages 7 to 10 - shouldn't be held accountable for items like school lunch money as part of their allowances, but it's not a bad idea for older kids and has the added benefit of fewer payments changing hands.

Some experts think parents should not link the allowance money to household chores. Children should be expected to help out around the house and in the yard because they are members of the family, not because they are paid. That's your call, obviously, not mine. When my family moved, my sister and I were slave labor and charged riding the lard of weeds at 5 cents a pop--we were rich in no time.

Yet with children over 8 or 9 years old, giving an allowance doesn't preclude paying them for specific chores, especially the occasional type that you might otherwise pay outsiders to perform, such as shoveling the sidewalk or washing the car. Why not keep the money in the family?

So instead of grimacing when your children hit you up for a raise, decide when the time is right and then engage them in fruitful negotiations. How long since the last raise? Will new expenditures be covered? What amount of the raise will be saved long-term for expenditures requiring your approval?

The most vexing decision on allowances is how much - a decision affected by personal values, family income and common sense. Don't let your children influence the amount by saying what their friends are getting: Any normal child will bring in high figures.

Many parents like to give their children the equivalent in today's dollars of the allowance they received at the same age. Assuming that these parents have more or less the same means as their parents did, this can be a comfortable solution.

Something to think about trying. It seems easier than running a classroom bank. My freebie is designed to help you teach and reenforce learning the value of coins. Without knowing those, kids are sunk. Print it off and use it to reteach coin values and to help you in the class and at home.

It seems only like yesterday when the year started. I always wonder where it went but I'm glad the year the year is almost over--it's been a year and then some but the pile of reading I want to get done over the summer.

My plan this summer is to continue to build my Common Core depth of knowledge and ways to shift the cognitive load to my students. My district has been pulling curriculum from just about every other district but ones in Colorado. (New York and Georgia--have great math units)

Book 1 & 2) Both of Eric Jenson's Students with Poverty books. Many of our RTI conversations seem to come back to this basic issue. Poverty impacts student learning more than most realize.

Book 3) Academic Conversations--the rubric I'm evaluated on looks at the basic of teacher to student talk and how much of that is high order thinking that students are doing without my help. Yes, without me. You would be amazed its really not super hard to get them to do that. Just lots of guided practice.

Book 4) Learning in the Fast Lane--I'm always on the look out for high impact, researched based instructional approaches that are easy to do.





Anyone have a pile of books you are planing to get through this summer? Share them below.

Have a great last couple weeks of school before summer starts.

Twice a year, my school does beginning and end of the year reading testings for all students. This year, I had a long conversation with a 2nd grade teacher about things she wished-a couple of her parents had asked before leaving. This got me thinking about our students and parents, I believe all parents want the very best for their children but just don't know which questions to ask or where to start.

In most of my IEP meetings, what parent's really want to know is where their child is. This in many ways is a very difficult question to answer. In my case, in just reading there is DIBELS, DRA, running records, Wilson Reading, Just Words, Fundations plus anything special the classroom teachers does as well-those are just the building assessments Then you layer on the District ones Beginning Reading (covers all beginning reading skills-letter identification, sounds, rhyming) and Acuity. So a simple question becomes a full conference.


This handout can be sent home as part of a Back to School packet or when you do Flex Testing. It is by no means the end all of all questions you could ask but its meant to be a jumping off point to help you help parents to maintain open lines of communication. (In many cases it is the lack of communication that leads to problems.)

Its that time of year--after Spring Break when the last minute chaos and drive to get any stuck in your RTI process out and identified for Special Education before the year ends. I know my team, tries to have a short short list before going to break. Even if we have surprises, then we have time to get to everyone.

I have a couple of resources to share. These have helped my team make sure the information we need is in place before moving to a referral.

I know with all the students and interventions going on, sometimes I get lost as to where students are in the process. This flow map helps keep me on track.

Something else that has been a great help for our whole Problem Solve Team, are all these forms. Here you will find everything from parent letters to invite them to meetings, data collection forms and checklists for just about everything. It is totally editable. So you can make it work for your own team. (Make sure to download from Scridb a docx. If you have problems downloading it as a document, email me and I'll send you a copy.)

Don't let the end of the year chaos sneak up on your team. Have a great week!!

This year I have one group of Wilson and they are tech savvy second graders.There classroom teachers use their Smart Boards for Fundations. It has been fun moving daily lessons to Smart Board. With this group moving to a new book--Book 3. I decided to move the whole lesson to my Smart Board. I still make words on my table. If you are looking for Sounds and Letters for your Smart Board I have one here.

Moving this group from things being placed on the table (as the directions tell you) to being on my Smart Board has changed how they interact with the words. It seems to be sticking more. Not sure but hey if it helps them get the words, strategies, and skills stick--then I'll create it.

I only put the reading day on my Smart Board because the spelling is spelling--yes they would love it I gave them the answers but that not the point. The reading one you can download from Dropbox. Its in Power Point, so you can make changes to meet the needs of your group.

Have a great weekend.

So, over the last two weeks, I've given the state testing (which is changing next year) and worked on replacing my now died laptop. With that now behind me, I can look forward to the second have of state testing for 4th and 5th grader in science and social studies on the computers. I still have no clue what the accommodations look like. With that all over for now, I left for Spring Break.

Something that keeps coming up in my school, is where to look for resources that help teachers and parents to understand that the depth looks like across the grades. Colorado is a CMAS and PARCC state--fewer standards at a deeper level but we have not told what that deeper level looks like. As I have gone searching to resources that break down math skills, I have come across a couple of sites that might help explain what Common Core is parents and help teachers continue to content with resources.

For Parents
Parents' Guide to Student Success
The Parents’ Guide to Student Success (listed below in English and Spanish) was developed in response to the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics that more than 45 states have adopted. To find out if your state has adopted the standards, visit CoreStandards.org/In-The-States. Created by teachers, parents, education experts, and others from across the country, the standards provide clear, consistent expectations for what students should be learning at each grade in order to be prepared for college and career.


Common Core State Standards Initiative
The Common Core State Standards (CCSSI) is a joint effort led by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers to develop a common core of K-12 standards in English language arts and Mathematics.

Achieve The Core
As educators, as researchers, and as citizens, we view the changes brought by the college and career readiness focus of the Common Core State Standards as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for kids of all backgrounds and ability levels to better fulfill their potential. Like the standards themselves, we are evidence-based in our approach. Our work is aimed at ensuring that teachers across the country are able to put the standards to work, quickly and effectively, to help their students and colleagues aspire to a higher standard and reach it. Accordingly, the content available on this site is assembled by and for educators and is freely available to everyone to use, modify and share.

We invite educators and people curious about the Common Core State Standards to explore what the site has to offer, including hundreds of math and literacy resources for teachers, resources for leaders who are putting college and career readiness standards into action in their own schools, and opportunities to become an advocate for the Common Core.

Parent Roadmaps to the Common Core Standards
The Council of the Great City Schools' parent roadmaps in mathematics provide guidance to parents about what their children will be learning and how they can support that learning in grades K-8. These parent roadmaps for each grade level also provide  three-year snapshots showing how selected standards progress from year to year so that students will be college and career ready upon their graduation from high school.

Common Core for Parents
Our Core-ready programs and materials help students become college and career ready while keeping the joy in learning. A great place to get questions answered from what the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment) is to figuring out if your child has a learning disability.


For Teachers

Common Core Explorer
Graphite is a free service from nonprofit Common Sense Media designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.

EduCore
At your fingertips is a wealth of information and resources about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for teachers, educational leaders, schools, and school districts. It has a great collection of evidence-based tools, strategies, videos, and supporting documents to learn about the implementation and transition to CCSS. A great place to build your capacity for understanding the shifts of the CCSS.

Defining the Core
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are the culmination of an extended, broad-based effort to fulfill the charge issued by the states to create the next generation of K-12 standards in order to help ensure that all students are college and career ready no later than the end of high school. This is one of the most important changes in education in the United States in the last fifty years and stands to positively affect students, parents, teachers, communities, and the workforce as we take a firm grasp on what 21st century learning truly means.

ELA/Literacy Learning Progressions
The online tool organizes the Common Core ELA strands of Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language into visible student skill progressions in an effort to keep the learning of all students moving forward. These progressions continually guide students and teachers to "what's next" and are a great foundation for assessing reading comprehension within the standards. The following descriptors outline how the various parts of the tool are constructed. This is great for backwards planning, so you can meet students where they are.

Books
Using Common Core Standards to Enhance Classroom Instruction & Assessment

Not everything Robert Marzano publishes is worth buying but I picked this one up earlier and love the rubrics (0-4 point scale) that have been created for all the standards. This is the closest I have come to finding something that gets at the depth of the standards. His website has freebies that are tied to each of the books.

I hope that this list of resources helps you better understand Common Core and where its headed. If you have a favorite resource, please share. Have a great week.

It would come to no surprise to anyone that summarizing becomes more complex as a reader moves from a beginning readers of Level A/1 to those reading at Level 38/P. This makes teaching this reading comprehension skill to a group of readers that span three years-18/J to 28/M to 38/P. (What was I thinking when I agreed to try this?) But this group has made progress than I would have guessed. They have risen to the challenge.

As I started thinking about how I was going to plan the next few weeks with this group, I went back to Fountas and Pinnell's Continuum of Literacy Learning, to see what the summarizing targets looked like. In this case, its the depth that students need to have. (This is a great resource!)

This means my models need to include two different ideas: 1) focusing one beginning, middle, end, with characters, problem, solution, and characters; 2) focusing on summarizing longer texts being more chapter based.

Next, problem what does the summary need to look like and how do I want them to know when they have met the target. But first, I need to find my mentor text to support my modeled lessons. (I could hold story hour for them and they would never mind not working:-))

Knowing I need at least four books covering several different reading levels:


These ones will provide me with different examples for my students.










With models in hand, how do I want students to write their summaries. They will also need the rubric and success criteria. (This is a new push for more. As a building we have just taken on Learning Targets--which   my students have loved. This is a tough challenge.) This is success criteria example of a 4 using the DRA scaffolded summary template.

 I'll share the examples the group puts together. Have a great week.

Last week I shared how I had a reading group where all the students were in different books. Well, this week, they did predicting through synthesis. Predicting is one of those skills that all readers learn how to do early on but well worth revisiting at each reading level because the depth that students must use this skill changes.