Assessment & Strengthening Activities For Child Development

Daily Wonder recommends that you take time to conduct a baseline assessment when you begin teaching your child each school year. Then, by observing them in everyday activities, you can track their development and become aware of areas that may need extra attention. Below, you will find specific areas to assess, ways to observe your child, and suggested activities to help strengthen particular areas of need. 

Establishing Dominance

Children typically favour a dominant side of the body around age seven.  You can check if your child has done so by observing them with the following activities.

ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES: 

1. To determine hand dominance: Toss a ball to your child and observe which hand they catch with. Then, ask them to throw it back to you and watch which hand they use.
2. To determine foot dominance: Roll and soccer ball to your child and observe which foot they kick it with. Then, ask them to kick it back and watch which foot they use.  Another activity for observing foot dominance would be to have them step up and down off a box and see which foot they lead with.
3. To determine eye dominance: Use a kaleidoscope or a rolled-up piece of paper and ask your child to hold it up to their eye.  Observe which eye they use.
4. To determine ear dominance: Use an object like a conch shell or something they can listen to and observe which ear they use.

Mixed dominance

If you notice that your child has mixed dominance, it means that they have not come to favour one side of the body as their dominant side. This can lead to delays in absorbing and responding to information because circuits may need to jump from the right side of the brain to the left hemisphere to process information. 

The main work here is brain lateralization, which is the left and right hemispheres learning to communicate. This involves having a preference for the right or left side of the body. 

Crossing the midline is a necessary skill that is related to bilateral coordination. This is the ability to use both sides of the body in a coordinated and organized manner, where one hand is the stabilizer, and the other hand is the performer.
​
Crossing the midline is the spontaneous movement of one hand, foot, eye into the space of the other hand, foot, eye.  

You can see how handwriting requires this skill, as the arm, hand, and eye travel from the left to right, crossing the body's centre. Letter formation also requires this crossing. 

Many everyday activities require us to do this; however, some children may need more specific focus to cross the midline fully. Activities that address the hand and foot are easier to practice and can help support the eye and ear to align as well.

STRENGTHENING ACTIVITIES:

Activities to Support Hand Dominance and Crossing the Midline: 

• Catching and throwing a ball (Throw or roll a ball to the opposite side of the body so your child must  reach across the midline. Call out the side of the body that it is being thrown or rolled to, to bring this awareness to your child.)
• Tie shoes
• String beads
• Cutting with scissors
• Tear paper with hands
• Create Figure 8 motion with arms, so it looks like an elephant trunk
• Create or solve mazes
• Do word searches
• Touch toes with the opposite hand
• Draw a Lemniscate (horizontal figure 8 shape) with the dominant hand. Trace the shape in sand or on the floor
• Card games like solitaire

Lemniscate

Activities to Support Foot Dominance:

• Climbing stairs (calling out the dominant foot every time it takes a step)
• Draw a Lemniscate (horizontal figure 8 shape) with the dominant foot. Put a crayon between the toes. Trace the shape in sand or on the floor
• Opposite knee to elbow movement
• Soccer practice- with something to mark the dominant foot- rolling it to them, so they have to cross the midline
• Stand on stabilizing leg and use the dominant foot to stamp out a rhythm. Then try clapping hands at the same time.

Healthy Posture & Pencil Grip

It is essential to have healthy habits when it comes to posture and pencil grip.  This will serve your child over the years as the demands for sitting at a desk and writing increase. 

ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES:

1. Observe your child while they are seated at the work table. Their feet should land on the floor, and their legs should be at a right angle to their body.  Take note of whether they seem very tired or have trouble keeping their spine straight. 
2. At the same time, you can observe their pencil grip. It will be important for them to learn the proper pencil grip to maintain stamina while writing.  Proper pencil grip also includes relaxed shoulders, allowing the non-dominant hand to play the role of stabilizer. 

Proper pencil grip

STRENGTHENING ACTIVITIES:

Ways to Support Healthy Posture:

• Model good posture
• Breathing practice
• Set your child up for success with proper chair and height of table
• Use a one-legged stool
• Body breaks every 30 min—doing squats, arm rotations, plank pose, yoga sequence.

Ways to Support Healthy Pencil Grip:

• This requires the development of fine motors skills (see Activities to Develop Fine Motor Skills)
• Encourage and remind the proper grip
• Pinch/flip method
• Activities to Develop Fine Motor Skills
• Hole punching
• Lacing activities
• Play Doh: pinch, role, cut, form
• Folding laundry
• Twisting with nuts/bolts, screwdriver
• Medicine dropper activities with food colouring
• Cut grass for a picture/art project
• Cut in a zig-zag pattern

Eye Tracking

Eye-tracking is an important foundation skill for reading. It’s important to notice whether your child can move their eyes horizontally while their head stays stationary. It is common to observe a tremor at the centre midline, which may indicate difficulty crossing the midline. ​

​ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES:

1. Observe your child watch a bird or airplane pass through the sky. Do their eyes move smoothly as they follow? 
2. Tie an object to the end of a string and swing it back and forth. Observe your child’s eyes as they move from left to right while following it.
3. Observe your child as they read a book. Watch for smoothness as they track from left to right.

Maze

STRENGTHENING ACTIVITIES:

1. Ask your child to find certain things within a room.  For example, all the squares, all the circles etc. 
2. Playing Simon Says or other games where your child must mimic your movements.
3. Sorting playing cards (by colour, suit, numbers etc.).
4. Using a flashlight, have your child track the beam as you wave it around the house.
5. Fun paper activities to try that strengthen eye tracking: 

• Connect the Dots
• Spot the Differences
• Mazes
• Tracing

Memory

We use our memory for imaginative thinking. For example, when we remember something we’ve been told or see, we build imaginative pictures in our brains, leading to high-level thinking. The ability to build pictures takes practice, and we can strengthen this skill through memory games.

ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES:

1. Ask your child to describe their bedroom to you while you are both sitting in the living room. 
   
2. If appropriate, ask them to tell you the days of the week or days of the months.
   
3. Ask them to tell you what they had for breakfast yesterday, or the day before etc.
   
4. Any memory question like; where do we go for summer vacation or who was at Sunday dinner last week? Etc.

STRENGTHENING ACTIVITIES:

1. Tell a story and have your child tell it back to you the next day.
   
2. Keep practicing describing things they have seen or experienced in the past.
   
3. Play ‘What Has Changed’ where your child observes you for 30 seconds then leaves the room.  While they are gone, you change something about yourself like; undo a button, part your hair on the other side, roll up a sleeve etc. Then, have them return and tell you what has changed.
   
4. Play ‘What is Missing’ where you line up a random line of up to 30 objects.  Have your child observe the objects, then have them close their eyes while you remove one of the items. After your child opens their eyes, have them tell you what is missing.

Links for More Info & Activities

Establishing Dominance and Crossing the Midline:

• Play, Games, and Sports in Childhood – The Right Thing at the Right Time from Waldorf Today
• Hand Dominance Activities in 3 Simple Steps from The OT Toolbox
• Crossing the Midline; An Important Handwriting Skill from Handwriting with Katherine 
• Hand Dominance from The OTFC Group

Developing Fine Motor Skills:

• Developing Fie Motor Skills from The Happy Brown House
• Easy Tips for Correcting Pencil Grip in Kids from the Happy Brown House​