What are the physical skills children need to be able to learn?

When children first attend school, it is considered good practice for educators to give them many pieces of work that contain essential elements of what is required for the actual skills of reading and writing. These include:

■ listening and talking

■ vocabulary

■ auditory and sequential memory

■ visual discrimination perception

■ gross motor control

■ fine motor control

■ balance

■ body awareness

■ spatial awareness

■ coordination

■ the ability to distinguish between left and right

■ visual tracking

■ rhythm.

(Russell, 1993: 10)

It is clear that the vast majority of the items on the list are of a physical nature. Attempting and gaining mastery of them through physical movement should afford the learner considerable help in the learning processes which can take place as the skills are acquired. However, are the children given enough practice with these skills or are many left to struggle to gain academic skills without these basic movements fully learnt?