My thesis is called “The Graphomotor Development in Early Elementary Education”. My presentation is about a part of the work, the methodics which I developed to help children with graphomotor difficulties.

The term “graphomotor” is currently understood as a specific motor activity, co-ordinated motor activity during graphic activities (e.g. drawing, writing, etc.). “Early elementary education” is used to refer to teaching of school beginners – pupils in the first years.

Children with graphomotor and writing disabilities exert a lot of effort during early elementary writing. They struggle with various graphomotor and writing difficulties, such as: inappropriate pencil grip, excessive pressure on the mat, spasmodic, intermittent, discontinuous, trembling graphical line, motor disco-ordination while trying to write the shapes of letters, difficulties while trying to connect two letters into syllables or a word, slow writing speed, diverse tilt of each letter in one word, mistakes in diacritic marks, punctuation, orthography etc.

The writing beginner who has graphomotor difficulties exerts a lot of effort to form the required shape of a line – to manage the technical component of writing (graphics).

The pupil also needs time for the second orthographic component of writing, which includes the feedback of what had been written, completing diacritic marks, punctuation, and correct ortography. Children with graphomotor disabilities lack this time due to using it on forming graphics.

In my attempt to contribute to graphics improvement I tried to work out The Proposal of Methodics of Relaxation Graphomotor Exercises in Early Elementary Education. I have had the possibility to apply the methodics with my pupils.

The methodics contains two parts. In my presentation I would like to introduce the first part only. It contains the suggested exercise book of relaxation graphomotor exercises called ”Do you want to scribble and also write well?” and five special exercises:

THE FIRST EXERCISE – relaxed forward bend

In my presentation I will introduce the suggested exercise book of relaxation graphomotor exercises. Then I would like to describe the first and the second exercise. I am going to talk about recommendations to the exercises. I will try to explain why was the relaxed forward bend and the combination of double-handed inwardly-turned cross grip with scribbling circles chosen.