Across the country, Pre-K and Transitional Kindergarten educators are noticing the same trend: more of their children are entering school with underdeveloped fine motor skills.
In a recent qualitative interview with Pre-K and TK educators, Learning Without Tears found that 55% of teachers reported students now arrive in classrooms without basic hand strength, pencil control, or experience using tools such as scissors. Some even referred to this trend as a fine motor crisis. Many educators shared that students had never held scissors or used a real pencil, making foundational tasks such as tracing or coloring unexpectedly difficult.
These insights from early educators support broader research findings that fine motor development lays physical groundwork for early writing—skills that strongly predict later reading success. As young children strengthen their hand muscles and develop control, they gain the ability to produce purposeful marks, form letters, and eventually write words. By helping students build fine motor skills, early education teachers can better prepare children to meet early reading and writing milestones in the primary grades.
Pre-K Fine Motor Skills Lay the Foundation for Emergent Writing, Reading
Fine motor skills don’t just help young children complete daily activities, they directly influence their ability to write and read. Children’s hand strength, pencil grasp, and tool control are key predictors of handwriting readiness, which influences sentence writing and academic performance. In classrooms where educators partnered with occupational therapists, one study found that preschoolers who initially struggled with tracing and early writing tasks made significant growth after participating in targeted, play-based motor interventions.
These findings align with longitudinal data from The Children’s Reading Foundation, which shows that kindergarten entry skills—including letter recognition, alphabet knowledge, and early motor-based writing abilities—are among the strongest predictors of later academic achievement, accounting for up to 28% of reading outcomes.
Students who fall behind in these areas often remain behind without targeted support. That’s why intentionally engaging in activities that strengthen children’s fine motor skills in ages 3–4 prepares them for handwriting, reading, and writing tasks they’ll encounter in kindergarten and beyond.
How Fine Motor Skills Impact Literacy Development in Pre-K
When children lack early writing experiences, they miss opportunities to connect print, language, and meaning—connections essential for decoding, encoding, and comprehension. Reading and writing develop together.
A 2025 Education Week article highlighted how early writing strengthens phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, and content understanding. Researcher Steve Graham and his colleagues have consistently documented how writing and reading are related and strengthen each other, even in the earliest grades, when children are first learning to read. Yet limited motor skills can hinder students’ ability to grasp key reading concepts.
Emergent writing research reinforces this point. As early as age two or three, children begin attaching meaning to their marks. Dr. Christina Bretz, occupational therapist and senior professional learning developer at Learning Without Tears, explained in a recent eSchool News article that educators and families can “plant the seeds” of early writing success by:
- Creating rich environments for emergent writing
- Supporting children through developmentally appropriate writing stages
- Fostering oral language through play
“This intentional approach not only sets the stage for future reading success but also empowers children to become confident, expressive communicators,” Bretz wrote. “When we view emergent writing as a developmental journey, rather than an academic skill to be taught, we can better support young learners in cultivating a love for literacy guided by curiosity, wonder, and joy.”
The Stages of Early Writing
According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), emergent writing progresses from scribbles to mock letters to letter strings and, eventually, meaningful sound-symbol connections. These stages require:
- Repeated tool use
- Small muscle development
- Refined hand-eye coordination
Without a strong fine motor foundation, children may struggle with:
- Proper pencil grip
- Tracing lines and shapes
- Letter formation
- Manipulating crayons, paintbrushes, or scissors
Other play-based fine motor activities, such as beading, molding clay, using tweezers, and block building naturally support the transition into writing. As children strengthen their fingers and hands, they gain the dexterity they need to form letters confidently.
The Science Behind Early Literacy and Motor Skill Integration
Because reading and writing develop together, integrated instruction leads to stronger literacy outcomes. Meanwhile, emergent literacy research shows that writing is a meaning-making activity, not just a motor task. When children write, they build:
- Symbolic understanding
- Oral language
- Phonological awareness
- Print concepts
- Organizational skills
Each of these skills strengthen early reading, underscoring that children need both intentional literacy instruction and frequent motor practice, ideally woven together through multisensory, play-based motor interventions.
Research-Based Strategies for Integrating Literacy, Fine Motor Development
Pre-K and TK teachers can create classroom environments and intentionally offer activities that build the fine motor skills students need to be prepared for writing and reading.
Incorporate Play-Based Fine Motor Work
Activities using playdough, scissors, tweezers, and threading build strength and precision. These experiences lead to measurable gains in tracing, prewriting, and early writing skills.
Create Print-Rich, Writing-Friendly Environments
Displaying children’s own writing boosts confidence and increases writing frequency.
Integrate Writing with Reading Instruction
Teach writing alongside phonological awareness and phonics to accelerate pre-reading growth. By writing words that align to sounds, teachers can reinforce decoding.
Use Manipulatives
When students use magnetic letters, pegboards, and varied writing tools, they learn while building fine motor dexterity.
How Learning Without Tears’ Letters & Literacy Supports Emergent Literacy Skills
Learning Without Tears designed Letters & Literacy for Pre-K and TK classrooms based on research that ties fine motor development to early literacy success. The program integrates emergent writing, fine motor development, phonological awareness, and early phonics into a cohesive, multisensory experience. Structure-based routines simultaneously support fine motor growth and early literacy development K/TK experience in one structure based routines simultaneously support fine motor growth and early literacy development.
In recent program evaluations, educators praised the program for its all-in-one structure, voicing that it made instruction more engaging, manageable, and developmentally appropriate. Many teachers highlighted how manipulatives, music, visuals, and play-based routines simultaneously support fine motor growth and early literacy development.
"With the implementation of the teacher's guide, activity books, and manipulatives, Pre-K teachers have the tools they need to successfully prepare young children for kindergarten," said Schronda McKnight-Burns, Ed.D, a Pre-K curriculum coordinator at Bryan ISD, a public school district in Bryan, Texas.
When children touch, build, and manipulate, they’re doing more than having fun. They’re making connections that help literacy skills stick. The hands-on, multimodal activities in Letters & Literacy help letters, sounds, and print concepts click with confidence.
👉 Learn more about Letters & Literacy, available this summer.