## North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

#### Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Health and Physical Development (HPD)

#### Subdomain: Motor Development

#### Goal: Children develop small muscle control and hand-eye coordination to manipulate objects and work with tools.

#### Skill Progression: Manipulation/Tool use

#### Age: 42-48 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 42-48 Months.

### Rotates pencil or marker into writing position

Situations for Observation of Skill

Have writing tools and paper available.

Elicitation Strategy

Hand a pencil or marker to the child, with the writing end pointing upward. This requires the child to turn the pencil over.

Behavior Observed

The child is capable of in-hand manipulation, or rotating a tool with one hand so it is facing the correct direction.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Early childhood educators and parents need to provide opportunities for children to use in-hand manipulation rather than using two hands to change the position of an object. For example, practice paying for items with coins from one hand; present tools upside down; or give a handful of a small snack and say, “See if you can use just one hand.”

North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.