Fine motor skills are those skills that involve the use of small muscles (e.g., muscles of the hands, fingers, face, etc.). The development of fine motor skills requires frequent practice, based on the principles of progressing from easier to more challenging tasks. This can involve a progression from larger to smaller tasks or vice versa, from harder to softer materials or vice versa, etc. It is essential that the child engages with appropriate materials and spends a significant amount of time creating with them. In kindergarten, there are various opportunities to develop fine motor skills. It depends on the educator whether they will systematically plan and gradually increase the complexity of these activities while encouraging children to be precise and persistent, or whether they will leave their development to random interactions and the child’s choice. In this thesis, we compared the progress in the development of selected fine motor skills in children aged 2-3 years when the educational process is systematically planned, upgraded, and progressively made more challenging, versus when the educational process is led in a way that leaves the child's activity to their random choice. The quasi-experiment included two groups of children aged 2-3 years, with 12 children in each group. The first group was the experimental group, with which we implemented a systematically planned program, while the second group served as the control group, which did not participate in this program. The effectiveness of the program was assessed through progress in the "Box and Block Test" and the "Nine-Hole Peg Test". We found that both groups made progress, with the experimental group showing greater progress than the control group, indicating that systematically planned activities contribute to more rapid advancement in the development of selected fine motor skills. In the "Box and Block Test", the control group achieved a 5% improvement with both the dominant and non-dominant hands, while the experimental group achieved a 42.6% improvement with the dominant hand and a 12% improvement with the non-dominant hand. In the "Nine-Hole Peg Test", the control group achieved a 9.1% improvement with the dominant hand and a 7.3% improvement with the non-dominant hand, whereas the experimental group achieved a 21.2% improvement with the dominant hand and a 13.2% improvement with the non-dominant hand.
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