Hand Clapping Games and Motor Abilities

Would you like children to have neater handwriting, write better and have better spelling? A recent study suggests teaching hand clapping games to children to improve motor and academic abilities. For ten weeks, two groups of children, at different elementary schools, participated in either a music appreciation program or hand clapping songs training. According to one of the researchers, Dr. Idit Sulkin a member of BGU's Music Science Lab in the Department of the Arts:

"We found that children in the first, second and third grades who sing these songs demonstrate skills absent in children who don't take part in similar activities. We also found that children who spontaneously perform hand-clapping songs in the yard during recess have neater handwriting, write better and make fewer spelling errors."

Not sure about how solid this research design was, but hand clapping games obviously help to develop motor planning skills, bilateral coordination skills, timing, body awareness and eye hand coordination skills. All skills that play a major role in handwriting and learning. Why not try a good old fashioned game of Miss Mary Mack today?

Reference: American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (2010, April 28). Hand-clapping songs improve motor and cognitive skills, research shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 30, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/04/100428090954.htm