Analyzing the Early Literacy Skills and Visual Motor Integration Levels of Kindergarten Students

Abstract

Early childhood education aims to support children’s whole development and their school readiness. Children develop a knowledge about reading, writing and learning before elementary school. This knowledge is called early literacy and it’s a key factor for school readiness. This study delves to investigate the early literacy skills of children and their visual motor integration. For this purpose, kindergarten students’ level of early literacy skills and visual motor integration was determined and the correlation between the two was analyzed. Eighty children at the age of five (40 females and 40 males) attending kindergarten were purposively chosen. In the study, 38% of the participants in the kindergarten was in the inadequate level of early literacy skills and 62% was in the instructional level. Children in the instructional level also showed that they had better visual motor coordination skills as well. These children presented better visual motor coordination skills in the fine manipulative skills category, print awareness category, and expressive and receptive language skills category. It was seen that visual motor integration development is a valuable factor to supports kindergarten children’s early literacy skills. For this reason, children’s visual motor coordination skills should be taken into consideration and supported for their early literacy skills development.