PLD catalogue 2018

Developing Cutting Skills Key Area: Movement and Motor Skills

Children benefit when home and school work together.

Children shouldprogress through the following Stages 1 to4 inorder todevelopgoodcutting skills. Stage 1 Children learn tohold scissorsappropriatelyand to openandclose scissors. Children learn to place their thumb in the top ring of the scissorsand their twoor three fingers in thebottom ring. At thisearly stage it is recommended thatadultspromptchil- dren to produce the ‘thumbs up’ sign before taking hold of the scissors. If students requiremuscle strengthening or hand coordinationpractice,playagameof “Open Shut Them!”

DevelopmentalNorms ForChildren Learning ToCut With Scissors Atage2 - 2½years... Child isable toopenand shut scissorswith twohands.

PLD offers an extensive range of parent education resources. Our download sheets provide milestone information and the specific YouTube playlist provides a range of short educational video clips. This information can be disseminated to parents and the wider community through newsletters, websites and general communication.

Thumb in the top ring of the scissors.

Parent Education

Twoor three fingers in thebottom ring of the scissors.

‘ThumbsUp’ Promptchildren to produce the ‘thumbsup’ sign before takinghold of the scissors.

Stage 2 Children learn toholdand snippaper.

DevelopmentalNorm Atage2½ - 3years... Child isable to snippaper.Childholds scissors inonehand (dominanthand isnot likelyestablishedat this stage). Thepaper maybeheldbyanadult.

Children learn to hold the paper in their non-cutting hand and toopen the scissors,push theblade forwardand shut the scissors resulting in snips topaper. Remember ‘ThumpsUp’.

ToMake Snips... “Open the scissors.” “Push theblades forward.” “Shut the scissors.” ANoteAboutDominance

Theadultmayhold thepaper ifneeded.

Research suggests that the majority of children show a dominant preference by 3 years and most by school age, however some actually establish dominance as late as 8 or 9 yearsold. Making apreference is importantas itallows the child todevelop skillandendurancewith thathand. Ifachild has not yetmadeapreference, it is suggested that thechildbeencouraged toparticipate inactivities:

Thumb in the top ring.

• that involvecrossing themidline, • thatusebothhands together, • wherebothareactiveand

Thumbup onpaper.

• whereonehanddoes theworkand theotheroneassists. Don’t try to choose the dominant hand but observe which hand is used themost often or ismore skilful. Itmay also be helpful to refer the child toanOccupational Therapist foran assessment,prior tocommencing yearone.

Option 1 Milestone sheets and downloads at www.pld-literacy.org Option 2 Foundation parent education playlist at https://youtube.com/pldliteracy

PLDOrganisationPty. Ltd.

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PLD’s structured synthetic phonics program is a recommended AUSPELD Wave 1 (whole class) and Wave 2 (small group) additional intervention program.

Recommended SSP Program

High performing primary schools: What do they have in common? Professor William Louden (2015) Research commissioned by the Education Department of WA, explored the similarities and differences among high performing West Australian Government primary schools. All of the schools used explicit teaching strategies for teaching phonological awareness and phonics. Common across all schools was a synthetic phonics approach. The following is a direct quote from the research paper. “Synthetic phonics is a systematic approach to teaching reading by beginning with sounds (phonemes) and blending (synthesising) these sounds to make words. All of the case study schools have implemented synthetic phonics programs in the early years... PLD Literacy and Learning .... teach[es] phonemes (letter and digraph sounds), letter formation, blending of sounds together to form new words, segmenting sounds in read and write new words, and teaching ‘tricky words’ with irregular spelling.” (Page 20-21) To read the full research paper go to https://pld-literacy.org/highperformingschools

Independent Research