Can a lack of access to green space impact on children's handwriting?

Analysis: Lack of spaces for play means children cannot develop the motor competency needed for handwriting development when they go to school

It can be difficult for teachers to separate our own childhood experiences from those of the children we teach. Despite the best efforts to 'unpack' and ‘reflect’, a teacher's own innate experiences of school shapes who they are as teachers.

When I began as a young teacher in an inner-city school in Dublin, I unconsciously assumed that the young boys in front of me had experienced the same physical development trajectory as myself, my siblings and peers. Growing up in rural Wexford, we spent countless hours playing outdoors in both structured and unstructured play, from ‘Tip the Can’ to simply running laps of the garden.

I can recall gathering moss, twigs, stones and grass to make ‘pizza’ using large flat rocks. I remember hopping the tennis ball or sliotar off the back wall until a worn-out voice from inside would shout ‘stop it!’. And I remember frequently climbing over walls, or crawling under bushes to reclaim lost balls. Climbing, running, crawling, gathering…agility, balance, stability, coordination, movement. It was all movement. Naturally occurring, playful movement leading to the development of motor competence.

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But I soon learned that this was not the experience of the children that I now taught. Many of the junior infant boys in my class appeared to be entering school with underdeveloped motor skills for their age. This subsequently impacted their ability to navigate the school environment - to move safely around furniture, to walk up and down stairs, to hang up their coats and bags and to line up to go outside. In relation to the curriculum specifically, it affected their ability to be engage with early writing activities, including drawing, tracing, letter formation and colouring.

Handwriting development in the early years is inextricably linked to children's motor competency, with the common performance components (legibility, spacing, letter size, page alignment and formation), dependent on early movement responses, spatial orientation and the development of fine and gross motor skills. Fine motor skills involve the small muscles of the hand and are commonly associated with handwriting development.

On the other hand (excuse the pun), gross motor skills involve the body's large muscles, and relate to balance and stability, posture, bilateral coordination, crossing the mid-line, and proprioceptive and spatial awareness. These skills are more commonly associated with physical activity and sport, but they play a key role in the development of handwriting skills.

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The development of these motor skills in the early years occurs as a result of the growth and maturation characteristics of the child interacting with the physical and socio-economic environment within which the child is reared. The environmental context in which a child is reared influences the development of motor competence, with different contexts making different demands on the child’s motor behaviour. Put simply, the physical environment in which a child grows up plays a key role in shaping their motor development.

Having visited the home of a boy in my class who was experiencing challenges in relation to motor competency, I was confronted by the reality of his physical environment. To get to his front door each day, he had to climb three flights of stairs. His mam was a single parent with two other young children who told us that she was understandably reluctant to go back out again once she managed to get him all the way up those stairs.

Inside the home, there was no kitchen table so the child did his homework lying on his tummy on the floor. He ate his meals and watched television while sitting or lying down on a soft couch. In school on the other hand, he was expected to be able to ‘sit up straight’ in a chair and to attend to tasks for hours at a time. Slumped over his desk and appearing unmotivated, he had simply not yet had the opportunities he needed to develop the core strength or the postural stability to be able to maintain a seated posture.

Handwriting allows for the telling of stories, the creation of imagined worlds and the sharing and chronicling of experiences

A study carried out between 2018-2022 indicated that there is a significant difference in the motor proficiency levels of children entering junior infants in DEIS schools, compared to non-DEIS schools. While 49% of children entering junior infants in DEIS schools had below or well-below average motor skills for their age, only 17% of children in non-DEIS schools were below or well-below average. These findings raise an important question about how children living in DEIS areas are given opportunities to develop motor competency in their early years.

They also support recent media reports that highlighted how a lack of green space in urban areas of Dublin is impacting on an estimated 8,000 children who have no safe spaces to play. Without safe spaces to engage in challenging physical play experiences, children are being denied the opportunity to develop motor competency that is critical for handwriting development upon entry into school. To develop these skills, children need space to move, climb, roll, jump and fall.

And they need to be able to write by hand. Despite the technological advances of recent years, handwriting remains the most dominant form of graphic communication across our society. It enables all persons to participate fully in daily life. Furthermore, handwriting allows for the telling of stories, the creation of imagined worlds and the sharing and chronicling of experiences. These children have stories to tell and it is our duty to make sure that they get to tell them.

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ