Visual Motor Toys to improve Visual Motor Skills for better Reading and Writing

This article provides recommendations for visual motor toys that help a child’s ocular motor skills and visual planning. Affiliate links are included for your convenience. Integrated Learning Strategies (ILS) is a learning and academic center. As a reminder, ILS is not a health care provider and none of our materials or services provide a diagnosis or treatment of a specific condition or learning challenge you may see in your child or student. If you seek a diagnosis or treatment for your child or student, please contact a trained professional who can provide an evaluation of the child.

Developing your child or students’ visual motor, ocular motor and visual tracking is critical for their reading and writing development. It could make a difference as the child begins to learn their letters for reading. When a child’s ocular motor and visual skills are not developed fully, they may struggle to read and write.

Children who have not yet developed their ocular motor and visual motor skills may have trouble tracking words on the page. They may also get letters confused when reading and writing. Letters commonly misread or misspelled are “b” for “d” and “p” for “q”. 

For strong handwriting skills, kids need strong visual skills to use both their eyes and hands to guide their hand across the page while they write their words. 

Ocular Motor and Visual Motor Toys

Incorporating toys and activities in your child’s routine is a fun and playful way to help a child’s ocular motor development. Toys can encourage development of these skills without the child realizing what you are trying to accomplish. However, if a child experiences any of the following, they may need additional Vision Therapy:

• Binocular vision
• Blurring and double images
• Trouble with farsightedness
• Can’t judge direction, distance or velocity
• Letters appear reversed
• Cross-eyed
• Immature eye movements
• Trouble focusing near to far

Vision therapy can help strengthen the muscles of the eyes for better tracking and handwriting growth.

Strengthening Visual Motor Skills

Strengthening a child’s visual motor skills while they are young is key. These skills are much easier to strengthen at younger ages when the child is provided with more opportunities throughout their developmental years. Toys and activities like these can encourage the child to use both eyes to create eye dominance. It will also help strengthen one eye if it appears to be weaker. 

To get you started, check out a few of our favorites below.

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Integrated Learning Strategies is a Utah-based center dedicated to helping mainstream children and children with learning challenges achieve academic success. Our services provide kids with non-traditional tutoring programs within the Davis County, Kaysville, Layton, Syracuse, Farmington, and Centerville areas. Areas to find Integrated Learning Strategies include: Reading tutors in Kaysville, Math tutors in Kaysville, Common Core Tutors in Kaysville, Tutors in Utah, Utah Tutoring Programs