visual perception

Sorting Colors Activities

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sorting colors

Sorting colors is a big deal. Young learners in the toddler and preschool stage start out by sorting items such as blocks, plastic animals, coins, or colored items.  Later in child development, sorting colors morphs into sorting silverware, matching socks, organizing drawers, or filing papers to name a few life skills. This is all part of child development in color recognition.

Sorting colors

Sorting by color is an important skill for organizing items into categories to make sense of them, or for ease of locating them later. It is far easier to find a pair of socks in a drawer when they are matched together rather than in a large multi-colored pile. But what developmental skills are required for sorting colors? How can you support this essential skill?

Sorting Colors

First, let’s break down what we mean by sorting colors…

Sorting by color can refer to anything from colored blocks to silverware does not involve being able to name the item. 

Developmentally, a young learner does not need to know their colors in order to sort. They are arranging the items according to their properties. You could sort foreign coins into their respective piles without any idea what they are. By participating in sorting color activities, the young child obtains hands-on practice in several areas of development: 

Hopefully as your learner continues to sort items, they may start recognizing the qualities of each item.  This can include shade, or color, shape, form, number, etc.

Sorting Colors Development

As with many skills, there is a hierarchy of learning to sorting tasks. Young children develop these skills through hands-on play and by playing with toys.

Development of color sorting progresses through these stages:

  1. Grouping items that are exactly the same.  Examples; colored plastic bears, blocks that are all the same size, coins, pompoms
  2. Sorting items that are similar: different brands of socks in similar colors, silverware in varying sizes, towels, a bag of buttons
  3. Sorting items that are similar AND different: sorting items by the color red, that are all different items. Sorting socks that are all different sizes, shapes, weights, and colors. Sorting items by colors that vary (five different shades of red).
  4. Sorting items that have more than one category This stage of development progresses to categorizing objects that can be sorted such as a pile of paper to file. In this case there needs to be one similar quality selected first in order to sort, such as putting all the medical bills together, sorting by date, alphabetizing the papers. The last stage is where we may see challenges impacted by working memory. Those struggling with development of executive functioning skills can be limited in sorting objects in various categories, particularly when a background is busy such as a messy desk, cluttered locker, or home.

Sorting by color is not the easiest way to sort. When there are multiple items that are similar such as 100 colored plastic balls, your learner may not recognize these as different items.  They see balls first, not colors. Try sorting very different items first.  Example: 5 identical buttons, 3 towels, 4 pencils, and 6 spoons.

Color Sorting and Visual Perception

Sorting involves recognizing an item’s properties, but also visual perception.  Through development of these skills, children move from thinking through the sorting of colors to visual efficiency which allows for automaticity in tasks.

Below are some thought processes that integrate color sorting with visual perceptual skills:

  • Figure ground lets the “perceiver” see the items as part to a whole, 
  • Form constancy recognizes that two balls of different colors are still balls. or two shades of red are still red.  
  • Visual discrimination allows the learner to tell difference between items. 
  • Visual memory is the ability to remember what is seen as the eyes are scanning the items

Color Sorting Teaches Mental Flexibility

When teaching sorting, teach mental flexibility.  Sort many different items in many different ways. Sort by, color, size, similarity, quality (4 legged animals), texture, weight, or two qualities.  

Sort the same items two different ways.  First sort the plastic fruit and veggies (affiliate link) into color, then sort by type.  Later your learner can sort by larger categories such as fruits versus vegetables.

Color Sorting and Functional Tasks

Why do some people have difficulty organizing and cleaning up? 

Sometimes a large task seems very overwhelming, therefore shut down and refusal tends to occur.  The most effective way to combat this is to teach sorting and categorizing. Go into your child’s messy room and look for the categories.  

  • Books all over the floor
  • Dirty clothes everywhere
  • Papers and trash scattered around
  • 9 dishes and plates
  • 29 stuffed animals
  • 84 hair clips
  • 64 crayons

Now this task seems much more manageable.  I often had to solve this dilemma with my younger daughter.

What other, more complicated ways could she organize this messy room?

  • Sorting the books into genre, size, type, or alphabetizing
  • Organizing the dirty clothes into whites and colors
  • Determining trash versus recyclables
  • Crayons may be part of the “school supplies” category
  • Hair accessories or toys might be a larger category

How would you tackle this chore?  

  • Sort into the larger category first such as books, then sort into their subcategories?  
  • Sort into subcategories such as stuffed animals, games, action figures, puzzles, then group into toys?  

There is no wrong answer depending on how your brain works. Actually the only wrong answer is not getting started or having a meltdown.

When working on basic sorting colors, and feeling it is futile or pointless, think about the bigger picture.  A person who can put their laundry, silverware, and toys away will be more independent than one who can not.

Color Sorting Activities

So, are you wondering about a fun way to build development in this area? We’ve got plenty of ideas.

The OT Toolbox has a great resource for teaching sorting using everyday items.

Amazon has tons of toys and games for sorting!  (affiliate link) Don’t limit yourself to store bought items though.  Your kitchen, bathroom, junk drawers, and desk are filled with items that can be grouped and sorted.  

Color sorting activities can include ideas such as:

  • Sorting colored circles (cut out circles from construction paper)
  • Sort different objects by color and drop them into baskets or bowls
  • Use color sorting activities along with a scavenger hunt. This color scavenger hunt is one fun idea.
  • Cut out cardboard shapes and sort by color or shape. This cardboard tangram activity is an easy way to make shapes in different colors.
  • Sort colored markers or crayons
  • Laminate a piece of construction paper and use it as a play mat. Sort different colored craft pom poms or other objects onto the correct mat.
  • Print out color words and sort them along with small objects. The Colors Handwriting Kit has these color words and other printable activities for playing with color.
  • Make dyed pumpkin seeds and sort by color.

This color sorting activity is a powerful fine motor activity and a super easy way to learn and play for toddlers and preschoolers.  We’ve done plenty of activities to work on fine motor skills in kids.  This straw activity is the type that is a huge hit in our house…it’s cheap, easy, and fun!  (a bonus for kids and mom!)  

A handful of straws and a few recycled grated cheese container are all that are needed for tripod grasp, scissor skills, color naming, and sorting.  

SO much learning is happening with color sorting!

Fine Motor Color Sorting Activity with Straws

This color sorting activity is a powerful fine motor activity and a super easy way to learn and play for toddlers and preschoolers.  We’ve done plenty of activities to work on fine motor skills in kids.  This straw activity is the type that is a huge hit in our house…it’s cheap, easy, and fun!  (a bonus for kids and mom!)  A handful of straws and a few recycled grated cheese container are all that are needed for tripod grasp, scissor skills, color naming, and sorting. 

This color sorting activity is great for toddlers and preschools because it helps to develop many of the fine motor skills that they need for function.

I had Baby Girl (age 2 and a half) do this activity and she LOVED it.  Now, many toddlers are exploring textures of small objects with their mouths.  If you have a little one who puts things in their mouth during play, this may not be the activity for you.  That’s ok.  If it doesn’t work right now, put it away and pull it out in a few months. 

Color sorting activity with straws

Always keep a close eye on your little ones during fine motor play and use your judgment with activities that work best for your child.  Many school teachers read our blog and definitely, if there are rules about choking hazards in your classroom, don’t do this one with the 2 or 3 year olds. 

You can adjust this color sorting activity to use other materials besides straws, too. Try using whole straws, pipe cleaners, colored craft sticks, or other objects that are safe for larger groups of Toddlers.  

There are so many fun ways to play and learn with our Occupational Therapy Activities for Toddlers post.

Kids can work on scissor skills by cutting straws into small pieces.

  color sorting activity using straws

We started out with a handful of colored straws.  These are a dollar store purchase and we only used a few of the hundred or so in the pack…starting out cheap…this activity is going well so far!  

Cutting the straws is a neat way to explore the “open-shut” motion of the scissors to cut the straw pieces.  Baby Girl liked the effect of cutting straws.  Flying straw bits= hilarious!  

If you’re not up for chasing bits and pieces of straws around the room or would rather not dodge flying straw pieces as they are cut, do this in a bin or bag.  Much easier on the eyes 😉  

Kids love to work on fine motor skills through play!

 Once our straws were cut into little pieces and ready for playing, I pulled out a few recycled grated cheese containers.  (Recycled container= free…activity going well still!)   We started with just one container out on the table and Baby Girl dropped the straw pieces into the holes. 

Here are more ways to use recycled materials in occupational therapy activities.

Toddlers and preschoolers can work on their tripod grasp by using small pieces of straws and a recycled grated cheese container.

Importance of Color sorting for toddlers and preschoolers

Color sorting activities are a great way to help toddlers and preschoolers develop skills for reading, learning, and math.

Sorting activities develop visual perceptual skills as children use visual discrimination to notice differences between objects.

By repeating the task with multiple repetitions, kids develop skills in visual attention and visual memory. These visual processing skills are necessary for reading and math tasks.

The ability to recall differences in objects builds working memory too, ask kids remember where specific colors go or the place where they should sort them.

These sorting skills come into play in more advanced learning tasks as they classify objects, numbers, letters, etc.

And, when children sort items by color, they are building What a great fine motor task this was for little hands!  Sorting straws into a container with small holes, like our activity, requires a tripod grasp to insert the straws into the small holes of the grated cheese container.   

These grated cheese containers are awesome for fine motor play with small objects!

Sorting items like cut up straws helps preschoolers and toddlers develop skills such as:

  • Fine motor skills (needed for pencil grasp, scissor use, turning pages, etc.)
  • Hand strength (needed for endurance in coloring, cutting, etc.)
  • Visual discrimination (needed to determine differences in letters, shapes, and numbers)
  • Visual attention
  • Visual discrimination
  • Visual perceptual skills
  • Left Right discrimination (needed for handwriting, fine motor tasks)
  • Counting
  • Patterning
  • Classification skills

Preschoolers can get a lot of learning (colors, patterns, sorting, counting) from this activity too.  Have them count as they put the pieces in, do a pattern with the colored straws, sort from smallest to biggest pieces and put them in the container in order…the possibilities are endless!

Cut straw into small pieces and provide three recycled containers to sort and work on fine motor skills with kids.

Color Sorting Activity with Straws

Once she got a little tired of the activity, I let it sit out on the table for a while with two  more containers added.  I started dropping in colored straw pieces into the containers and sorted them by color. 

Use colored straws to sort and work on fine motor skills with recycled containers.

Baby Girl picked right up on that and got into the activity again.  This lasted for a long time.  We kept this out all day and she even wanted to invite her cousin over to play with us.  So we did!  This was a hit with the toddlers and Little Guy when he came home from preschool.  Easy, cheap, and fun.  I’ll take it!

Looking for more fun ways to work on color sorting?

You’ll find more activities to build hand strength, coordination, and dexterity in this resource on Fine Motor Skills.

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Colors Handwriting Kit

Rainbow Handwriting Kit– This resource pack includes handwriting sheets, write the room cards, color worksheets, visual motor activities, and so much more. The handwriting kit includes:

  • Write the Room, Color Names: Lowercase Letters
  • Write the Room, Color Names: Uppercase Letters
  • Write the Room, Color Names: Cursive Writing
  • Copy/Draw/Color/Cut Color Worksheets
  • Colors Roll & Write Page
  • Color Names Letter Size Puzzle Pages
  • Flip and Fill A-Z Letter Pages
  • Colors Pre-Writing Lines Pencil Control Mazes
  • This handwriting kit now includes a bonus pack of pencil control worksheets, 1-10 fine motor clip cards, visual discrimination maze for directionality, handwriting sheets, and working memory/direction following sheet! Valued at $5, this bonus kit triples the goal areas you can work on in each therapy session or home program.

Click here to get your copy of the Colors Handwriting Kit.

Visual Figure Ground

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visual figure ground

Vision and visual skills are complex with sub-categories such as visual figure ground. Luckily, occupational therapists are equipped with the ability and knowledge to assess vision at many levels. One type of visual skill that OTs assess for is called visual figure ground. In this post, we will break down what figure ground means, how visual-figure ground it fits into vision as a whole, and some red flags we look for. You’ll find some creative figure ground activities to build this skill, too!

Visual figure ground

WHAT IS VISUAL FIGURE GROUND?

Visual figure ground is the ability to discriminate between the object of focus and the other objects that are also in view, using visual skills such as attention, visual memory, and other components of visual perceptual skills. This is a hugely important skill in reading and writing, as well as learning and retaining information. 

Vision as a whole is made up of many parts. For daily activities, sighted individuals need to have visual clarity/focus (this can be adjusted with glasses), eye movement skills, and visual attention.  

In other words, figure ground is the ability to see an object and ignore the background. Without this ability, it may seem like a child needs glasses even though they may have technically perfect vision at the optometrist.

Visual figure ground has to do with visual attention, and how the eyes work with the brain to understand an image.

VISUAL FIGURE GROUND: RED FLAGS

Below a general list of red flags to look for when it comes to visual figure ground. Many of these red flags are the same for other visual perception skills, as it often requires the combination of several skills to perform a task.

This is not an exhaustive list, but some ideas to work from. 

  • Difficulty completing age-appropriate puzzles
  • Difficulty reading or searching for important information in a text
  • Unable to complete mazes, “I Spy”, word searches, etc. in a similar way to their peers
  • Prefers simple artwork/images to complex 
  • Gives up quickly when looking for an item in their desk
  • Assumes many items are “lost” when they are in view/nearby
  • Difficulty coping from the board 
  • Unable to find a toy they want from the toy box
  • Difficulty finding a yogurt cup in the full refrigerator

You may be wondering, how do I know if its a problem with visual skills or something bigger, like attention overall?

Visual Figure Ground Activities

Being that the primary occupation of children is play, so it is through play that we address underlying skills such as figure ground. You’ll love this long list of visual activities that target a variety of areas, including visual figure ground.

Playing “I Spy” or “hide-and-go-seek” with familiar objects around the house can be a great way to get their brains prepped for visual discrimination of figure ground. They will use visual attention, visual tracking, and problem solving skills to win! 

Reading books or engaging in other activities provided by ‘Busy Town’, ‘Where’s Waldo’, or, of course, the ‘I Spy’ series are other great places to start. There are towns of great vision books recommendations for you that work to develop skills through reading.

You can also involve younger children in these types of activities by having them sort colorful cereal into the color categories, dig through the laundry basket to find matching socks, or really, anything that makes sense in your home. 

Figure Ground Worksheets

Sometimes, relating the vision skills to a reading or writing task is needed, and that’s where the figure ground worksheets come into play. Worksheets can get a bad rap, but it is possible to make worksheets functional, fun, and meaningful for kids so that they develop essential skills.

We have an awesome apple activity set that was developed to target visual skills, as well as tons of free resources for you to build visual figure ground skills! 

These free printable resources target figure ground skills and cover a variety of themes.

Visual processing bundle
Visual Processing Bundle is a collection of resources on visual processing skills.

One of our most popular tools to address visual figure ground is our Visual Processing Bundle. It’s a collection of printable resources, worksheets, handouts, and activity booklets geared towards all things vision.

Sydney Thorson, OTR/L, is a new occupational therapist working in school-based therapy. Her
background is in Human Development and Family Studies, and she is passionate about
providing individualized and meaningful treatment for each child and their family. Sydney is also
a children’s author and illustrator and is always working on new and exciting projects.

Developmental Tools for Teaching Letter Recognition

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Letter puzzle pieces and a magnifying glass focusing on letter E. Text reads "letter identification"

This blog discusses activities for teaching letter recognition. At its most basic, letter recognition refers to letter identification. It is one of the main skills children need to know before they can name, write, or sound out the letters. The following fun letter recognition games for preschoolers are based on development and skill progression.

Be sure to read through our blog post on name practice for kindergarten for resources and tools to support letter use and recognition in children ages 5-6 or for kids at the level where they are recognizing letters in their name. These ideas are great for beginning reading for kindergarten.

Use our new color by letter worksheet to further develop this letter recognition skill.

Teaching letter recognition

What you need to know about Teaching Letter recognition

Letter recognition, or the ability to recognize and identify letters begins at a very young age. But did you know that teaching letter recognition skills starts way before kindergarten and and even before entering the classroom?

Kindergarten students are many times exposed to writing and copying letters on trace worksheets, and writing pages. But before a young child can do these skills that are part of the curriculum, knowing what skills lead up to these skills is helpful.

Even before a young preschooler is able to identify and name letters in printed context such as books or letter play activities, they are learning this skill through the immersion of seeing letters in everyday life.

Letter identification and the ability to recognize letters in printed form might occur through exposure on television, printed media, following along while a book is being read, or while engaging with technology. 

There is a progression in the important literacy skill of recognizing printed letters:

  • Letter recognition in isolation – example, pointing out all of the upper case letter As on a letter picture book
  • Letter recognition in every day life – example pointing out the letter S on a stop sign
  • Letter identification – identifying and stating letter’s names
  • Letter identification in text -reading and sounding out a letter’s sound in reading or sounding out written text
  • Matching upper case and lowercase letters– matching the upper case letters to lowercase, and vice versa

Each step of teaching letter recognition skills is founded in experience and practice. This includes communication with others, exposure, and reading with caregivers. 

Not every child learns the same way. Starting as young as preschool, caregivers can support children by using their interests and strengths to teach them new skills.

Children don’t need to read or write until well beyond toddlerhood, but preschoolers enjoy looking at books, finding letters on walks, and learning letters through movement. 

The best way to teach letter recognition
The best way to teach letter recognition is by first covering the prerequisite skills.

Prerequisites to Letter Teaching Letter Recognition

Several areas are needed to develop letter recognition skills:

  • Object permanence
  • Form constancy
  • Visual discrimination
  • Visual figure ground
  • Working memory
  • Visual memory
  • Visual scanning skills
  • Cognitive skills
  • Physical development

You can see that these components are founded in visual motor skills, perceptual skills, and working memory.

Before any of this can happen (and through the process), young children should be exposed to rhymes, songs, and singing the alphabet song. (Add alphabet exercises for movement fun!) Letter formation rhymes can support literacy as well. This is actually the first step in the road to literacy!

Teaching letter recognition requires Visual discrimination Skills

Letter recognition/identification is when a person is able to look at a letter and recall it from previous experience. Recognition of letters occurs both in uppercase and lowercase form. Additionally, there is a cursive letter recognition aspect as well. This blog post covers cursive letter recognition skills.

This site states that even before letter identification, there are a few other skills that should be taught, including visual discrimination, so the child is able to find differences among lines and shapes. 

Visual discrimination can be taught in isolation through books or letter formation worksheets, or in games and activities such as Memory games, matching and sorting activities, or playing “what’s the same” and “what’s different” through hidden picture activities and puzzles.  We cover this visual perceptual skill in our blog post, Wacky Wednesday book activity.

Visual Memory Another great play-based activity to develop the visual perceptual memory skills needed for letter recognition, are games that challenge kids to notice differences. Present the child with a tray of everyday items, and ask them to memorize the items on the tray. Ask them to look away or cover their eyes. Take away one or more items, and have them recall the missing items. 

Letter activities- Other ways to encourage letter play is through printed alphabet worksheets, puzzles, letter magnets, or other alphabet manipulatives such as letter beads. You can ask the child to sort letters based on shape, such as those that include straight lines, versus curved line, or diagonal letters. You can also sort letters by letters based on size: tall letters, short letters, and letters with a tail that hangs below the lines.

One way to encourage functional handwriting is through addressing letter size. This tall and short worksheet has a fine motor and visual motor component that can be incorporated into whole-body movement activities to teach these concepts that carryover into letter sizing and use in handwriting.

Prerequisites to teaching letter recognition begins in infancy

These prerequisite skills that support letter recognition, such as visual discrimination and memory, develop as early as infancy, when young children identify 3D objects that are familiar to them like their bottle, favorite toy, or their parents. It is important infants experience tummy time in order to develop visual motor skills, and strong oculomotor skills, as a result of time spent on the belly while looking at objects.

As children grow, their visual discrimination becomes more refined and they are able to identify pictures and written words.

Toddlers are able to point to a picture of a puppy in a book they are reading, or identify who is hiding under the blanket.

Object permanence and working memory

When a child sees an object and knows what it is called, this is referred to as object permanence. This requires working memory skill development to use what is seen, remember it, and store it for later retrieval.

While visual discrimination is the ability to detect differences and similarities in size, shape, color and pattern, cognitive ability is necessary to recognize these differences based on previous exposure, along with memory to have stored that information away in their mind’s eye to recall when needed.

This skill is typically associated with letter formation and handwriting skills. Identifying and discriminating between differences in letters allow kids to copy and write letters from memory. However, noticing and identifying the differences in the curves, diagonal lines, and lines that make up a letter are essential build up to that skill.

Hearing and saying the letter sounds associated with letters are part of the process, too. Phonemic awareness is developed initially through play, but this skill continues to develop and progress as reading and literacy skills are refined in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and beyond.

Teaching letter recognition begins with the ability to recognize details in visual images

In more depth, students should identify likeness and differences of shapes or forms, colors, as well as the position of various objects and people. Developing discrimination skills will help children learn the alphabet and then both read and print letters a lot better. 

There are numerous types of visual discrimination that children should begin to understand and develop. These include: 

  • 3D Objects
  • Shapes
  • Drawings & Pictures
  • Colors
  • Letters and Words
  • Sequences

Letter recognition games

The letter recognition activities and games and listed below are fun ways to instruct children in the essential skills needed for reading and literacy. It’s literally the building block to reading.

  • Name Recognition- Start with recognizing the letters of their name. Point out letters in the child’s name and ask them to point to letters in a book or on a sign. Children can first begin with recognizing upper case letters of their name, then moving onto the lowercase letters. Working first with uppercase letters is best, because capital letters are easier to discriminate between. Lowercase letters have many similar letters, b,d,p,g,q, and j. 
  • Bean Bag Letter Toss – Affix upper and lowercase letter stickers to one side of each bean bag. Put a basket or bucket across from your child. As your child throws the bean bags into the bucket, ask them to name the letters and their sounds of the letters. Students can run around looking for matching letters scattered around the room.
  • Alphabet Play dough- Write down large letters on a piece of paper and place that paper into a sheet protector. Encourage your child to form the letters on the sheet protector with play dough of their choosing.
  • I Spy Letter Walk –Take a walk with your child and look for letters in their environment such as on license plates, street signs and building. Play, I Spy, searching for different letters, or letters in sequential order. The printable tools in the Letter Fine Motor Kit are a great resource for this activity.
  • Jumping to letters – Create a letter pathway with sidewalk chalk on a playground or sidewalk. Children can walk, run, jump, or crawl across the letters, naming them as they move forward! Change it up by asking them to walk backwards along the path. This is a fun motor planning activity.
  • Chasing the Alphabet – (Amazon affiliate link:) Sammy Chases the Alphabet is a book I wrote about Sammy the Golden Dog playing fetch with balls around his farm. Each ball has a letter on it. After you read the book, bring the story to life by adding letter stickers to ball pit balls. Toss the balls around a room or outside, and encourage your child to find them all, naming the letters on each ball they find.
  • Food Alphabet Worksheets – Pair real food items with these food worksheets. These worksheets include the letter, a food that starts with the letter, and all of the letters that make the word. As children sound out each letter, ask them to point to the letter that makes that sound.

more letter recognition Activities

Alphabet activities like the ones below support recognition skills through repetition. Alphabet recognition occurs through songs, play, and hands-on activities.

  • The Soundabet Song – Letter identification doesn’t just include what letters look like, it also includes what letters sound like. Can your child point to the letter name as well as the sound it makes? This Soundabet Song is a great way to teach kids how to pair the sounds of the letters to what the letters look like. 
  • Letter Push – This ABC play dough activity uses plastic letters and play dough! Add in some fine motor skills to alphabet identification, by having children push plastic letters into play dough while they name the letter. This can be done as a circle time game, where each child take a turn pushing in a letter, or a small group time where every child has the opportunity to push the play dough letters. 
  • Alphabet Sensory Bins – Nothing keeps my preschoolers entertained more then a large sensory bin! Adding alphabet letters or letter markers to the sensory bins for children to find and match, is one of the most exciting letter identification games. Check out these sensory bin base ideas to use in different letter recognition sensory  bins.
  • This alphabet sensory writing tray requires users to recognize letters by uncovering them from a sensory medium. This is a great activity for recognizing letter parts such as diagonals or the curved part of a letter as the letter is uncovered.
  • Metal alphabet tray play – My favorite is to add a metal pan to the sensory table, and ask kids to stick the magnet letters they find in the sensory materials onto the metal pan!
  • Alphabet Discover Bottle – This sensory discovery bottle can be used before naptime, bedtime, in a calm down corner, or as a learning activity. As children shake the bottle, they can name the letters that appear! 
  • Match letters- Match uppercase letters to lower case letters, match different fonts of letters, and match letters in different environments (books, signs, on television, in print, etc.)
  • Gross motor activities- Use a letter floor mat to jump on a specific letter. Ask the child to find a letter magnet and place it on the letter mat.
  • Letter recognition scavenger hunts- Use ideas like these letter clothes pins scavenger hunt for ideas.
  • Write letters in shaving cream or in sand
  • Sort letters by word families when teaching letter groups
  • Play beginning sound games- I spy with my little eye, a word that starts with /b/
  • Use dot markers to dot letters
  • Spot letters on a white board and trace with a dry erase marker
  • make letters from pipe cleaners
  • Sensory play activities
  • Trace letters on sandpaper

A note teaching letter recognition skills:

Learning through play doesn’t have to be stressful. Every child learns differently, and that includes recognizing letters of the alphabet. Once a child has developed the visual discrimination, expressive language and receptive language skills needed to participate in letter identification activities, notice what motivates them to learn.

Do they like to move, cut, color, dance, or sing? Pick a letter activity that you know your child will love, and they will keep coming back for more. This will result in increasing their attention span and learning new letters daily. Follow your child’s interests and you will surely have a wonderful time!

letter identification

Today’s post addresses Letter Identification. What happens if your student copies letters, but is unable to recognize them? Can a student who can not identify letters learn to read? Letter identification is at the core of reading and writing, which are important life skills.

letter identification before copying and tracing

Many therapists and teachers work on copying and tracing long before their students can recognize the letters. Have you thought about what happens if your student copies and traces letters, but is unable to identify them?

Tracing is not going to teach number/letter formation if the learner does not know what those figures are. To a learner who does not know these symbols, they will be tracing lines and circles, not learning numbers or letters.

This holds true for copying letters and numbers. For example, the “H” becomes just sticks, while the “b” is a ball and a stick rather than recognized symbols.

Theoretically if a person writes or traces the letter “A” enough times, the body will start to recognize this pattern (through motor planning and kinesthetic awareness), and commit it to memory. 

This only works if the learner understands what is being traced or copied, and can add meaning to it.

can a student who is unable to identify letters learn to read?

Sadly students who are unable to recognize letters can learn to read, but not efficiently or effectively. Learners who are unable to identify letters will memorize the way words look as a clump, rather than using letter identification and phonemic awareness. This holds true for math. Students can learn ways to get around multiplication and division without memorizing these facts.

Because students can “get by” this is why it is critical to insure students have the necessary building blocks for learning before moving on. Pushing students through to the next grade without having the necessary skills, is an ongoing problem. How many high school students have you seen that are unable to do simple math in their head, or spell simple words? Too many.

IdentificATION OF lETTERS FOR READING

Let’s circle back to letter identification now that you have a better understanding of the need for letter identification before teaching reading, copying, writing, or tracing.

One of the pre-reading skills kids need to be a successful reader is letter knowledge.

Letter Knowledge begins with Letter Identification which is also known as Alphabet Recognition.

Students have different learning styles, therefore they need to be exposed to new information in various ways.

Learners can understand information by:

Offering several different teaching styles is the key to meeting the needs of all different types of students. Sometimes this takes many trials to find the one that sticks.

I had a reluctant learner who was unable to recall or identify his letters despite repetition, flash cards, games, puzzles, worksheets, or any other activity I presented. In the past I had used my students specific interests to spark their learning. Many lines were made making Thomas the Train tracks across the paper.

This student loved Star Wars. He could name every character. Lucky for me, there are many Star Wars characters! I paired a letter with each character. We used A for Anakin, S for Stormtroopers, C for Chewbacca, and so on. At first we worked on pairing them verbally/auditorily. Then I made flash cards with pictures of each character near their name and picture. Because this was motivating for him, my student quickly learned letter identification!

activities to teach letter idenfication

Before children are able to learn to read or identify letters, you can work with them to understand what they are. This can be done by reading stories, singing songs, telling nursery rhymes, and talking to them. Once they begin to notice that stories or other items have symbols, you can point to the words as you read them. Here are some simple letter identification activities:

  • Point out print wherever you see them. On signs, license plates, television, books, packages, clothing, or anywhere you might find written print.
  • Look for specific letters in books or magazines. Ask the child to name the letter and the sound.
  • Make arts and crafts with specific letters. Write it in sand, shaving cream, or a foggy mirror. Letter of the week crafts are fun, too. We have printable letter crafts inside The OT Toolbox Membership.
  • Practice writing letters with different toys or activities. Magnetic letters, books, magazines, puzzles, flash cards, and games like Scrabble, are handy options to have letters readily available for letter identification.
  • Form letters out of pretzel dough, play dough, popsicle sticks, pasta, or cookie cutters for sensory letter formation.
  • Play a Letter Scavenger Hunt and have students look for certain letters you have hidden around the room or house. A scavenger hunt is another great use for magnetic letters. Enhance this activity by adding finding items that start with that letter.
  • Use a keyboard to identify letters. Keyboarding skill is a great life skill tool to have. Finding and identifying letters is a great way to practice and learn the letters in a functional way.

ot toolbox resources for letter recognition

  • Developmental tools for teaching letter recognition – This blog discusses activities for teaching letter recognition
  • Here is a recent post on Learning Letters with Bottle Caps
  • The OT Toolbox Archives contain dozens of posts related to letter recognition.
  • Alphabet Movement Cards – Alphabet Movement Cards combine love of letters, along with aerobic activity to work on muscle strength, tone, focus, attention, or add a much needed sensory break between tabletop tasks. 
  • Letter Formation Themed Activities – This page includes all of our Letter Formation theme activities. You’ll find letter formation themed fine motor activities, letter printables, and A-Z therapy tools of all kinds! Plan out a week (or weeks) of activities for your whole therapy caseload. Just print and go!

Letters are everywhere!

When you start to think about letters, you realize they are everywhere! Use what is readily available to immerse your learners in knowledge. You might have to get creative once in a while, like my Star Wars guy, but that is what makes this job so fun!

Jeana Kinne is a veteran preschool teacher and director. She has over 20 years of experience in the Early Childhood Education field. Her Bachelors Degree is in Child Development and her Masters Degree is in Early Childhood Education. She has spent over 10 years as a coach, working with Parents and Preschool Teachers, and another 10 years working with infants and toddlers with special needs. She is also the author of the “Sammy the Golden Dog” series, teaching children important skills through play.

Letters Fine Motor Kit
Letter Fine Motor Kit

The Letter Fine Motor Kit is a 100 page printable packet includes everything you need for hands-on letter learning and multisensory handwriting!

This resource is great for pediatric occupational therapists working on handwriting skills, fine motor skills, visual motor skills, and more. Use the activities to promote a variety of functional tasks.

Teachers will find this printable packet easily integrated into literacy centers, classroom activities, and multisensory learning.

Parents will find this resource a tool for learning at home, supporting skill development, and perfect for therapy at home!

MULTISENSORY HANDWRITING

Grab the Letter Fine Motor Kit and use all of the senses, including heavy work, or proprioceptive input, through the hands ask kids build and manipulate materials to develop handwriting and letter formation skills.

Forest Animals Shadow Matching Worksheet

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shadow matching worksheet with forest animals theme

Today we have a fun shadow matching worksheet for you. This forest animals activity is great for adding to a woodland animal theme, but more importantly, use the shadow worksheet to build visual perceptual skills in areas such as form constancy, visual memory, and more.

Shadow math
Free printable shadow matching worksheet with a forest animals theme.

Shadow matching worksheet

How are your visual perceptual skills?  

My learner can see, but can’t really SEE.  Wait, what?  Isn’t all “seeing” the same?  Not really.  There is seeing in the sense of visual acuity, how well the eyes can see items up close and at a distance.  Then there is seeing in the sense or perceiving an object. A person can have great visual acuity, 20/20 in fact, but have terrible visual perception.  In visual acuity the eye basically has to see the object.  In perception it not only has to see the object, but make sense of it. These vision issues are covered in our blog post on visual efficiency.

For example; I can see the puzzle pieces, but I can’t perceive that each piece becomes something whole, or which piece is the right shape.

This article does an excellent job of explaining visual perception, its effects, and how to improve this skill.

Armed with this information, it is critical to work on developing visual perceptual skills at an early age.  Visual perceptual skills begin in infancy with facial recognition, and by school age are necessary for reading, writing, and mathematics.

When it comes to visual perception, the OT Toolbox has you covered!  Check out the latest PDF free printable, Forest Animals Shadow Matching Worksheet.

You can get the shadow matching worksheet below by entering your email address into the form, or head to The OT Toolbox Member’s Club and going to the visual perception area. Use this item in a forest animals theme! And if you’re doing a forest animals theme, definitely be sure to add this Forest Animals Scissor Skills Activity. It’s a free set of printable puzzles kids can color, cut out, and put back together.

This is a great activity to build visual perceptual skills as early as preschool age. It addresses form constancy, figure ground, visual discrimination and visual attention. You can find other matching activities that support visual perceptual skill development in our free visual perception packet. It includes resources like this flower match-up, and outer space matching worksheets.

Ways to modify the shadow matching worksheet:

  • Laminate the page for reusability. This saves on resources, and many learners love to write with markers!
  • Print in black and white or color for different levels of difficulty
  • Cut the shapes and make a matching game instead of using a writing tool to draw lines
  • Talk about the animals, describe their characteristics, and give context clues to help your learner understand why certain pictures match

Other skills addressed using this forest animal activity sheet:

  • Attention
  • Behavior
  • Frustration tolerance
  • Task avoidance
  • Self regulation
  • Organization
  • Scanning
  • Fine motor skills – pencil grasp, drawing lines

In order to create a full lesson or treatment plan, therapists will need to be armed with more than just this one shadow matching worksheet.  The OT Toolbox offers several free printable items to work on visual perception, including:

If you are looking for all of your resources in one place, the OT Toolbox also offers a Visual Processing Bundle, featured here:

Visual Processing Bundle

What other tasks or games work on visual perception?

  • Puzzles or dot to dots
  • Working on spatial concepts such as “in, out, on, under, next to, up, down, in front of.”
  • Hidden pictures games 
  • The game Memory – matching hidden pictures
  • Word search puzzles and mazes
  • Construction tasks using legos or popsicle sticks
  • Copying 3D block designs
  • Cleaning and organizing – washing dishes, sorting silverware, sorting laundry, organizing spaces
  • There are several Ipad apps available if necessary, but I recommend using electronics with caution, and following up with a real life task.

Now you know  more about “seeing” better.  Before working on visual perceptual skills, make sure your learner has correct visual acuity.  Sometimes their struggle is due to acuity rather than perception.  In this case, a pair of eyeglasses is an easy fix!

Whether your learner is working on this shadow worksheet, or any other resources by the OT Toolbox, make learning fun and motivating.  There is nothing better than a learner who is excited to see what their therapist has to offer.

shadow worksheet, shadow matching worksheet, forest animals

Free Shadow Matching Worksheet

Want to work on shadow matching with a forest animals theme? This shadow worksheet supports development of visual perceptual skills through play! Perfect for adding to a forest animals weekly therapy theme. Enter your email address into the form below.

Or, if you are a Member’s Club member, be sure to log in and then head to the visual perception area of free downloads that are on The OT Toolbox website. Not a member? Join now.

Free Forest Animals Worksheets

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    *The term, “learner” is used throughout this post for readability, however this information is relevant for students, patients, clients, children of all ages, etc. The term “they” is used instead of he/she to be inclusive.

    Victoria Wood, OTR/L is a contributor to The OT Toolbox and has been providing Occupational Therapy treatment in pediatrics for more than 25 years. She has practiced in hospital settings (inpatient, outpatient, NICU, PICU), school systems, and outpatient clinics in several states. She has treated hundreds of children with various sensory processing dysfunction in the areas of behavior, gross/fine motor skills, social skills and self-care. Ms. Wood has also been a featured speaker at seminars, webinars, and school staff development training. She is the author of Seeing your Home and Community with Sensory Eyes.

    Writing and Reading Stick

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    Reading stick

    When it comes to handwriting, copying without losing place on the page impacts writing (visual attention plays a big role here), so much so that a reading stick or writing stick tool can be a huge help. Here we are showing an easy way to make a reading stick or writing stick that can be used to impact writing without missing letters or words…and why this happens.

    What is a Reading Stick

    Handwriting is a challenge when spacing is inaccurate.  Poorly spaced letters and words as a result of visual spatial difficulties can lead to illegible handwriting.

    A reading stick is a pointer stick that kids can use to follow along with words when reading and writing.

    When reading from a chalkboard or smartboard, a teacher might use a large pointer stick for this task. One tip for teachers is to add a bright visual cue to the end of the pointer stick to add a visual contrast that is engaging and visual. This might be something like bright tape added to the end of the pointer stick, neon tape or post-it notes folded over the tip of the pointer stick are some ways to easily do this.

    But, when kids are reading and copying from a space on their desk, they can use a miniature version of the pointer stick as a reading tool. What’s nice about the version that we created is that the reading stick can be used in many different ways:

    • Use the pointer stick with the visual cue at the end to point along with reading from a book.
    • Turn the reading stick on it’s side to follow along line by line when reading.
    • Use the craft stick as a spacing tool when writing.

    Why use a reading stick for writing?

    A writing stick is a handwriting tool that can also be called a pointer stick for handwriting. Students and teachers can use a writing stick to follow along with written work to support handwriting needs so that a student doesn’t miss letters or words when writing.

    Copying handwriting work requires several areas of visual processing:

    Using this pointer stick to copy words can help with copying written work without omitting letters or words. The reading stick then doubles as a spacing tool.

    Using a spacing tool can be a HUGE help for some kids!  This handwriting spacing tool pointer stick is a physical prompt and a visual cue that helps kids in handwriting and become independent with when writing.

    There is a lot going on when a child is required to write.  The visual motor skills needed to accurately copy or write written work requires the processing of visual perceptual skills along with coordination and manipulation of the pencil along lines and margins.

    These are a lot of different areas that can break down and result in sloppy or illegible handwriting!

    Try this handwriting spacing tool pointer stick to help kids with spatial awareness when writing.

    Use a spacing tool pointer stick to help with placing spaces between letters and words, assuring words, phrases, or sentences are not omitted, and when aligning columns of words, as in lists.

    Handwriting Spacing Tool Pointer Stick

    Affiliate links are included in this post.

    Try using this spacing pointer stick to keep margins aligned too.

    Looking for other ways to address spacing in margin use?  Here are a bunch of ideas for spatial awareness with margins.

    use a marker to make a reading stick to follow along with words when reading or writing.
    Use a marker to make a reading stick for kids.

    You will need just two materials to make a spacing pointer stick:

    Amazon affiliate links included:

    Use the marker to make a brightly colored dot on one end of the craft stick.  You could also use a small sticker, but I wanted to ensure a bright contrast between the colored craft stick and the colored dot.

    Use a reading stick to follow along when reading to make sure words aren't missed.
    Use a reading stick when reading so kids don’t miss words or lines of text when reading.

    And that’s it!  Show the child how to use it to keep their place when copying written work, when aligning margins, and when spacing between words.

    Use the spacing tool pointer stick to help kids with spatial awareness in these ways:

    • Point to words when copying from a text or sheet on a desk.  The pointer stick can help keep the child’s place, visually.
    • Align columns in math and lists of words.
    • Align left and right margins on the page.  Keep the margin from drifting in toward the middle of the page.
    • Space between letters and words when writing.
    Use this handwriting spacing tool pointer stick to align columns of words or math problems when writing, perfect for kids who struggle with spatial awareness.

    Read more about spatial awareness and how it relates to handwriting.

    Some spacing tools can be themed!  Go beyond the simple dot or sticker and make a spaceman spacing tool. You can also use a clothespin tool for spacing between words when writing. Finally, this writing spacer craft is another handwriting craft kids can make.

    Another great way to add hands-on play to spatial awareness is an activity like these spacing puzzles.

    Use this handwriting spacing tool pointer stick to help kids with spatial awareness when writing.

    Need more handwriting strategies?  

    The Handwriting Book is a comprehensive resource created by experienced pediatric OTs and PTs.

    The Handwriting Book covers everything you need to know about handwriting, guided by development and focused on function. This digital resource is is the ultimate resource for tips, strategies, suggestions, and information to support handwriting development in kids.

    The Handwriting Book breaks down the functional skill of handwriting into developmental areas. These include developmental progression of pre-writing strokes, fine motor skills, gross motor development, sensory considerations, and visual perceptual skills. Each section includes strategies and tips to improve these underlying areas.

    • Strategies to address letter and number formation and reversals
    • Ideas for combining handwriting and play
    • Activities to practice handwriting skills at home
    • Tips and strategies for the reluctant writer
    • Tips to improve pencil grip
    • Tips for sizing, spacing, and alignment with overall improved legibility

    Click here to grab your copy of The Handwriting Book today.

    Dinosaur Free Printable For Visual Perception

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    dinosaur free printable

    If you know a kiddo that loves all things dinosaurs, than this dinosaur free printable is for you! It’s a visual perception activity designed to develop and support visual perceptual skills such as visual discrimination, form constancy, visual closure, and other visual processing skills (visual tracking for one!) To grab this free printable dinosaur activity, read on! Add this resource to your dinosaur activities for an OT theme.

    Dinosaur free printable page

    Dinosaur Free Printable

    If you are working on the visual perceptual skills needed for letter formation, handwriting, or reading, then you are probably loving the recent free visual perception printable sheets that we’ve been sharing on the site.  

    This visual perception worksheet is great for working on skills like visual motor skills, visual scanning, visual figure ground, visual discrimination, spatial reasoning, and visual memory.  Also, it’s a great way to develop pencil control by moving the pencil around obstacles as kids connect the matching pairs of dinosaurs.

    Visual perceptual skills are needed for so many functional skills. You’ll find easy and fun ways to work on visual perceptual skills through play here. 

    Kids will love this free visual perception printable sheet with a dinosaur theme

    How to use this dinosaur printable

    This printable dino activity can be used in many different ways to support hands-on learning.

    Print the page and slide it into a plastic page protector.  Kids can then use a dry erase marker to work on the page over and over again.  

    Try these tips to use the worksheet in different ways:

    • Connect the dinosaurs with a dry erase marker
    • Place play dough balls on the matching dinosaurs
    • Use finger paints to place a fingerprint on each matching dinosaur
    • Play I Spy: Ask users to find an object that has specific colors or other details

    OR, use it right on your tablet.  You won’t be able to draw a line to connect matching dinosaurs, but you will be able to save the ink as kids use their finger to connect the matching dinosaurs.  They will still address those visual perceptual skills by using the freebie on a tablet’s screen.

    Then, use this activity along with other dinosaur activities to support development of other skills. Other dinosaur themed ideas to use along with this printable activity include:

    Free Dinosaur Printabale

    To get your copy of this printable page, enter your email address into the form below. The printable is part of our 24 page free visual perception packet, so you can use all of the items in the packet along with this dinosaur activity. Just print and go!

    OR, if you are an OT Toolbox Member, you can log in and go to our toolboxes and access this resource along with every other freebie here on the website. For this particular tool, head to our visual tools page.

    Look for more free visual perception worksheets like this one, coming soon to the site.  

    You can check out our space theme visual perception free printable, or if you sign up for the freebie below, you’ll be directed to a page with all of the free printables in one place.    

    These visual perception apple theme shape stamps are a perfect way to work on visual perceptual skills and fine motor skills with DIY stampers.

    Be sure to try some of these pencil control activities to help with the visual motor skills needed for handwriting and to challenge a child you know with more activities just like the dinosaur free printable.  

    FREE VISUAL PERCEPTION PRINTABLE PACKET

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      Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

      Magnetic Marble Run- Great Therapy Tool!

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      magnetic wall marble run

      One thing occupational therapists love is using fun toys to develop skills and this magnetic marble run fits the bill. We found this Tumble Trax magnetic wall marble run and loved the ways to support fine motor skills, visual motor skills, and gross motor skills. Let’s take a better look at how to use a marble run to support development, and break down the activity analysis for this particular magnetic marble run toy.

      Magnetic marble run activities for therapy

      Amazon affiliate links are included in this post.

      How to Use a Magnetic Marble Run

      Use this magnetic marble run in so many ways to work on a variety of skills. From fine motor, to core strength, to visual tracking, to crossing midline…this marble run can be so helpful.

      We covered how to support skills such as visual tracking using marble runs in a different blog post but here, we hope to cover more ways to support development with a simple toy.

      Because this marble run attaches to the wall using magnets, and because the magnetic marble run pieces are movable, there are so many ways to support development.

      Some of these skills include gross motor development, visual motor skill development, fine motor development, and more.

      Use a Magnetic Marble Run for Gross Motor Skills

      Use the magnetic marble run on a vertical surface to address skill development:

      • Work on core strength by working on a vertical surface.
      • Address visual shift and upright posture by working at a plane equal or slightly above the head and line of sight.
      • Work on postural control
      • Address changes in positioning to bend, squat, and challenge different muscle groups by bending to retrieve marble run pieces and place them on the magnetic surface.
      • Work overhead to visually track and shift vision in different planes.
      • Address balance and coordination skills
      • Incorporate breathing

      Use a Magnetic Marble Run for Visual Processing Skills

      Move magnetic marble run pieces to target specific visual motor skills:

      • Work on visual tracking to watch the marble run through the track.
      • Address visual scanning skills to shift vision to the next area the marble will move
      • Incorporate eye-hand coordination skills
      • Address visual perceptual skills such as figure-ground, visual closure, visual discrimination, etc.
      • Address visual motor skills by copying designs using the movable track pieces, included with the Tumble Trax Magnetic Marble Run set. (affiliate link)

      Use a Marble Run for Fine Motor Skills

      • Address crossing midline to move a marble to a starting point across the midline.
      • Trace the track with fingers.
      • Pick up and manipulate the marble onto the Tumble Trax (affiliate link) ledge.
      • Strengthen hands, including grip and pinch to manipulate and move the track pieces against the magnetic surface.

      Attach it to a magnetic wall or board, garage door, and even the refrigerator. It’s a fun way to play and work on the skills kids need.

      Magnetic marble run

      Learning Resources Tumble Trax Magnetic Marble Run

      This marble run attaches to the refrigerator or any magnetic surface for endless visual motor integration exercises. Visually tracking the marble is a skill builder for reading and writing tasks.  Kids can address the form copying skills needed for handwriting with this interactive toy.

      Click here to get this magnetic marble run. (affiliate link)

      More Marble Run Activities

      Check out these other marble run activities we’ve shared before:

      Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

      Looking for more ways to support fine motor skills, visual motor skills, sensory challenges, and gross motor skill development? Grab one of our therapy kits to work on so many areas!

      Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

      Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

      Letters Fine Motor Kit
      Kit de motricidad fina de verano
      Summer Fine Motor Kit
      Outer Space Fine Motor Kit
      Space Fine Motor Kit
      Spring fine motor kit
      Valentines Day fine motor kit
      winter fine motor kit
      Winter Fine Motor Kit

      Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

      Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

      What is Finger Isolation?

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      finger isolation

      Today’s post is all about finger isolation: what does finger isolation mean, why this fine motor skill is important, and even finger isolation exercises and activities to support precision and dexterity in the fingers. As children develop dexterity in fine motor skills, more precision and refined movements allow for coordinated skill work. It’s through this motor skill that one can do specific tasks that use only one finger or several fingers.

      Finger isolation is needed for daily tasks, and finger games are just one way to build this skill.

      You may have heard of finger isolation as a component of fine motor skills that kids need for dexterity and precision. Today, we’re discussing this important motor skill, how finger isolation impacts function, and activities to build finger dexterity. So, what is this motor skill that allows us to point, hold up a single finger, or make fingerprints? Let’s discuss!

      What is finger isolation? 

      Finger isolation is the ability to isolate and use the fingers one at a time in functional tasks. The fine motor skill of finger isolation is the development of being able to “isolate” or individually use each finger of the hand. Counting one finger at a time, tying shoes, typing on a screen or computer keyboard, finger games like “Where is Thumbkin?”, and opposing one finger to the thumb are examples of finger isolation. One way to target this is using typing programs to improve finger isolation.

      When children are developing they begin to use each finger individually; as infants, children tend to use the hand as one solid unit. Finger isolation is one of the first important developmental milestones that leads to children’s ability to write well with a pencil, type on a keyboard, play a musical instrument, tie shoes ect!

      If you’re wondering how to see if your child has good finger isolation, you can ask yourself:  

      • Does your preschooler or kindergartner avoid pointing?
      • Do they tend to gesture in the direction of an object instead of pointing?
      • Do they use their whole hand to grasp objects rather than one or two fingers when that makes more sense for the size of the object?
      • Do they struggle to manipulate coins, turn a page of a book, tie shoes, or other task requiring refined movements?

      Then adding a few finger isolation activities and games might be helpful for your child!

      Development of finger isolation

      Finger isolation typically develops in the baby at around 6 months of age as they begin to pick up small pieces of cereal. It progresses to pointing, and then separation of the two sides of the hand with in-hand manipulation. Finger isolation is so important in fine motor dexterity in every task that the hands perform.

      There are other components of fine motor skills that contribute to the precision of isolating fingers in activities:

      • Separation of the sides of the hand- Separating the sides of the hand isolates the precision side of the hand from the power side of the hand allows for, and requires isolation of fingers and joints during motor tasks.
      • In-hand manipulation- In hand manipulation includes moving objects within the hand and refined isolation of digits and joints on the fingers contribute to this skill.
      • Arch development– This hand strength allows for fingers to move in isolation of one another.
      • Opposition- Finger and thumb opposition of the thumb to the fingers also plays a role in finger isolation. This ability to oppose the thumb to a single digit allows for more refined and precise grasps on objects.
      • Open thumb web space- Similarly, to oppose the thumb to the fingertips, an open thumb web space is necessary.

      Finger Isolation and Screens (apps and games)

      From a very young age, many small children are efficient at using tablets and phone apps with finger isolation to point, swipe, and move through images on the screen. However, when kids are scrolling the screen, and using their finger in isolation on a tablet, they typically use only one finger (the index finger OR the middle finger) and do not exert strength on the screen.  

      They are not receiving feedback through the muscles and joints of the hand (proprioception) to build motor plans for fine motor tasks. They are not establishing a “store” of fine motor experiences.

      You then may see that single finger is stronger and more dominant in tasks such as pencil grasp or tying shoes. This concept is similar to the dominance of a hand or side of the body. Equally of interest is this post on deciphering the difference between dominance and ambidextrous. It’s all related, and to the occupational therapy professional, so interesting to read about the connections!

      Read here for more symptoms of too much screen time.

      Finger isolation is a fine motor skill kids need for dexterity and precision. Here are ccupational therpay activities to work on fine motor skills.

      Development of fine motor skills includes finger isolation. Here is more information on finger isolation for dexterity and motor control.

      Finger Isolation Activities

      So, how can you build and develop finger isolation?  There are many ways to build finger isolation skills. You’ll also find more finger isolation activities along with a craft that can help kids become more aware of this fine motor skill. Below are small motor tools to help with development. Add these finger strength exercises to your therapy plans or home programs.

      One great way to develop precision in a single digit of the hand is to instruct the individual to tap each finger to their thumb (give them a demonstration so they can mirror you!),

      Isolation of the individual fingers really develops with hand strength and coordination through the use of hand clapping games and finger rhyming songs. Show the individual finger and hand games such as “Where is Thumbkin?”, “Itsy Bitsy Spider”, and other rhyming games that involve hand motions.  

      Overall, fingerplay songs are a powerful tool to support the development of finger isolation!

      • Pop bubbles
      • Play “I spy” with items around the house and encourage your child to point
      • Counting on fingers one at a time
      • “Itsy Bitsy Spider” (this is a great beginner motor plan with easy finger isolation hand motion)
      • Shadow hand puppets using a flashlight
      • Dampen fingers to pick up small items such as glitter, confetti, other small items
      • Teaching common finger expressions such as “A okay”, thumbs up, finger guns etc
      • “Lizard fingers”: this is one of my favorites that really makes kids laugh, stick small pieces of tape on each finger and have kids pretend to be a lizard and see what they can pick up around the room! (Make sure to have small items that can actually be picked up, we’ve had a couple failures with this activity!)

      Other finger isolation ideas here on The OT Toolbox:

      What is finger isolation? Use these button rings to work on using fingers one at a time in fine motor activities with kids!

      Finger Isolation Crafts

      • Make and play with finger puppets
      • Finger painting
      • Using a pointer finger to trace shapes in foam, slime, various sensory mediums
      • Make “spaghetti” strings by rolling play-doh between the index finger and thumb
      • Make a “finger soccer board” by folding up a small piece of paper into a triangular shape and have your child “flick” the “ball” into the goal

      If there is ever an easy craft that you and the kids make, this is it.  These button rings are as cute as they are effective in developing the skills needed for tasks like maintaining a pencil grasp, shoe tying, and managing clothing fasteners.

      This post contains affiliate links.

      You’ll need just a few items for this craft:


      These super cute button rings are a craft that my kids loved making.  They wore these rings every day for a while there. (This mom did, too!)

      What is finger isolation? Use these button rings to work on using fingers one at a time in fine motor activities with kids!

       

      1. To make the rings, cut the pipe cleaners into small pieces.  You’ll want them small enough to fit little fingers, but a little longer in order to add the buttons.
      2. Thread the buttons onto one end of the pipe cleaner.  
      3. Twist the two ends together and tuck the end of the pipe cleaner on the outside of the ring (so it won’t rub up against the skin).
      4. You can add extra buttons and layer different colored buttons for fun rings. 

      Finger isolation activity with rings

      • When wearing the rings, incorporate finger isolation by placing rings on different fingers.  
      • Ask your child to hold up the finger with a specific colored button or pipe cleaner.  
      • Try tapping fingers with the rings one at a time by calling out a colored ring and asking your child to play a “SIMON” type of memory game.
      What is finger isolation? Use these button rings to work on using fingers one at a time in fine motor activities with kids!

        You’ll love these fine motor activities, too:

      Homemade Pencil Grip
      Toys to improve Finger Isolation
      A-Z Fingerprint Art
      Fine motor fingerprints to help with finger isolation and dexterity in kids
      Benefits of Fingerprint Art
      Help kids with fine motor skills using a glove as a trick to help them isolate fingers.
      Fingerless Glove Activity
      Distal Finger Control Exercises

      Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

      Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

      Letters Fine Motor Kit
      Kit de motricidad fina de verano
      Summer Fine Motor Kit
      Outer Space Fine Motor Kit
      Space Fine Motor Kit
      Spring fine motor kit
      Valentines Day fine motor kit
      winter fine motor kit
      Winter Fine Motor Kit

      Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

      Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

      Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

      Scanning Activities for Reading (Free Download)

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      visual scanning for reading

      Today, we have a fun scanning activities for reading using a printable visual scanning worksheet resource that supports the underlying visual skills to target scanning exercises. Plus, the scanning worksheet users will love the fun theme. Vision truly impacts learning so if we can support the areas of development that help a child thrive, we are moving in the right direction.

      One of the ways that occupational therapy professionals support development is through meaningful occupations, and anything fun and playful is a winner when it comes to pediatric OT! This visual scanning worksheet is just that: a fun skill-builder!

      There are many visual scanning activities that support functional participation. Here, we’re talking specifically about reading skills.

      Visual Scanning and reading

      The end of the school year might feel like coasting into the finish line, however it needs to be focused on meeting goals and preparing learners for summer reading. 

      Learners seem to have a love/hate relationship with reading. I believe the people who hate reading struggle with this task. 

      Becoming a proficient reader takes a combination of skills. Beyond vision, phonics, spelling, and letter recognition, are the visual perceptual skills needed to read fluently. One way to foster the needed skills is with an activity like the visual scanning worksheets shown below. It’s a printable resource that focuses on scanning activities for reading. 

      Visual scanning impacts reading in many ways.

      • The child who struggles with letter reversals
      • The child who labors with reading and commonly skips words or lines of words when reading.
      • Saccadic eye movement, or visual scanning, is necessary for reading a sentence or paragraph as the eyes follow the line of words.
      • Visual scanning allows us to rapidly shift vision between two objects without overshooting as when shifting vision during reading tasks.
      • In copying written work, this skill is very necessary.
      • Skips words or a line of words when reading or re-reads lines of text
      • Must use finger to keep place when reading
      • Poor reading comprehension

      All of these aspects of reading can be an issue because of scanning challenges.

      So what’s going on here, visually?

      Visual scanning is one of several visual perceptual skills. These have been highlighted in posts before, but as a reminder, they are:

      • Visual Attention: The ability to focus on important visual information and filter out unimportant background information.
      • Visual Discrimination: The ability to determine differences or similarities in objects based on size, color, shape, etc.
      • Visual Memory: The ability to recall visual traits of a form or object.
      • Visual Spatial Relationships: Understanding the relationships of objects within the environment.
      • Visual Sequential-Memory: The ability to recall a sequence of objects in the correct order.
      • Visual Figure Ground: The ability to locate something in a busy background.
      • Visual Form Constancy: The ability to know that a form or shape is the same, even if it has been made smaller/larger or has been turned around.
      • Visual Closure: The ability to recognize a form or object when part of the picture is missing

      All of these areas combined make up visual perception, and is part of the bigger picture of how our eyes work functionally.

      Visual perception is the ability to organize and interpret the information that is seen and give it meaning.  This is a common thread in therapy treatment, as it is the foundation for many activities addressed daily.

      Visual perception is essential for reading, writing, math, self care tasks, instrumental activities of daily living, and play.

      How to develop SCANNING Skills FOR READING

      There are ways to support the development and accuracy of visual scanning skills when using visual scanning worksheets.

      1. Reading Readiness Skills- When my girls were young, the summer reading list meant a chance to earn a ticket to Six Flags from the school!  It also meant a dollar per chapter book from mom and dad.  I was out $61.00 just from one kid that summer.  It was worth it. 

      In preparation  we did a lot of scanning activities for reading readiness.  These included worksheets like the ones offered on the OT Toolbox, as well as games.  Amazon has their (affiliate link) visual perceptual games chunked into one search category. 

      This might include using reading prompts, desired books, and short reading passages or use of a short series of images, letters, or icons on visual scanning worksheets.

      Other strategies include working on scanning the environment for details. Ask kids to look for items that are all one color, for example.

      Another reading readiness activity that supports reading is I Spy activities like these I Spy colors game, I spy with real toys, and printable pages (Many are found in our Membership).

      2. Visual Scanning Games- Some activities to develop scanning skills for reading include:

      • Tricky Fingers
      • QBitz
      • Where’s Waldo
      • Highlights Magazine
      • Spot it Games.

      3. Vision Activities– Also be sure to check out these vision activities for kids to support all of the underlying skills that impact reading and learning.

      Specifically, be sure to check out these visual scanning activities that cover the full gamut!

      4. Take a Deeper Look at What’s Going On- When assessing for reading difficulties, once you have ruled out visual acuity issues, use a screening tool or assessment to test for visual perceptual deficits. 

      The Motor Free Visual Perceptual Test, as well as the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills, assesses the different visual perceptual skills, broken down into different areas. 

      5. Visual Scanning Exercises- The free spring weather visual scanning exercise (grab it below!) is just a sample of the larger packet offered HERE on the OT Toolbox. Targeting scanning exercises doesn’t need to be complicated. Using simple three item series of images builds visual scanning skills.

      Below you’ll find a free downloadable spring visual scanning exercise you can use to support visual scanning needed for reading skills. These activities include a weather and Spring theme, but you can use them all times of year. The sun and clouds themes work for everyone with fun scanning exercises kids love.

      This visual scanning exercise is a great scanning activity for reading. It relies on visual attention, discrimination, memory, visual-sequential memory, and figure ground.

      For more scanning work, grab the Spring Fine Motor Packet. This 97 page no-prep packet includes everything you need to guide fine motor skills in face-to-face AND virtual learning. Includes Spring themed activities for hand strength, pinch and grip, dexterity, eye-hand coordination, bilateral coordination, endurance, finger isolation, and more. 

      6. Visual Perception Activities- There are several posts this month highlighting Visual Perceptual Activities for Spring. 

      For some therapists, parents, and educators this scanning activity will be great worksheets for spring break, on those long rides to Grandma’s house.

      Others will find these PDF sheets great for a spring lesson plan. Make a great packet of pages to send home, or do during class.  You can laminate these pages to make them eco-friendly and reusable. Some people project these onto smart boards, however I personally prefer the added skills involved in writing on paper.  However you choose to motivate your learners is the key to success.

      DATA COLLECTION during scanning activities

      Scanning activities for reading readiness are great for data collection. It is easy to measure the number of correct/incorrect guesses.

      Of course, a scanning activity gets tricky when other factors such as impulsivity, attention, and compliance skew the data. Be sure to document these aspects of scanning that impacts reading skills as a functional task:

      • Document the number of errors, while adding narrative about the learner’s behavior. 
      • Provide several different types of visual perceptual tasks to try and determine which specific skills (or combination) are deficient.  This way your treatment can be more efficient, if you can hone in on one or two skill areas, such as visual memory, or scanning. 

      DOCUMENTATION of Scanning tasks to support reading

      • Does your learner scan in sequential order, or all over the page?
      • Are items completely missed when scanning?
      • Is your learner taking their time, or making random guesses?
      • Does your learner thoroughly look at all the choices before giving an answer?

      Some of these questions are not easy to answer. Continue to provide different types of exercises in order to measure progress. 

      Progress is often the answer we seek, rather than “why do they do that?”  Often doctors do not know the why, but have to try different things until they find something that works. 

      Use spring break (if you are lucky enough to have one) to rest and recharge for all of the fun spring activities that can be added to your treatment plans and OT Toolbox!

      As a related resource, check out our blog post on types of eye specialists. Another great resource is our blog post on behavioral optometrists.

      Free scanning activity Download to support reading skills

      Want to add this printable scanning activity tool to your therapy toolbox?

      Want to add this resource to your therapy toolbox so you can help kids thrive? Enter your email into the form below to access this printable tool.

      This resource is just one of the many tools available in The OT Toolbox Member’s Club. Each month, members get instant access to downloadable activities, handouts, worksheets, and printable tools to support development. Members can log into their dashboard and access all of our free downloads in one place. Plus, you’ll find exclusive materials and premium level materials.

      Level 1 members gain instant access to all of the downloads available on the site, without enter your email each time PLUS exclusive new resources each month.

      Level 2 members get access to all of our downloads, exclusive new resources each month, PLUS additional, premium content each month: therapy kits, screening tools, games, therapy packets, and much more. AND, level 2 members get ad-free content across the entire OT Toolbox website.

      Join the Member’s Club today!

      FREE Visual Scanning for Reading Exercise

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        Victoria Wood, OTR/L is a contributor to The OT Toolbox and has been providing Occupational Therapy treatment in pediatrics for more than 25 years. She has practiced in hospital settings (inpatient, outpatient, NICU, PICU), school systems, and outpatient clinics in several states. She has treated hundreds of children with various sensory processing dysfunction in the areas of behavior, gross/fine motor skills, social skills and self-care. Ms. Wood has also been a featured speaker at seminars, webinars, and school staff development training. She is the author of Seeing your Home and Community with Sensory Eyes.

        NOTE*The term, “learner” is used throughout this post for readability and inclusion. This information is relevant for students, patients, clients, preschoolers, kids/children of all ages and stages or whomever could benefit from these resources. The term “they” is used instead of he/she to be inclusive.