Miss Mary Mack.....

Remember the clapping games from elementary school recess? You had to clap a partner's hands in rhythm to the poem following a pattern. You had to cross the midline, remember the words to the rhyme, think ahead and respond to your partner. This little game builds bilateral coordination, laterality & directionality, visual motor integration, all of which are visual skills that contribute to a child's ability to succeed in school. If your child can't do a simple game of patti-cake without mixing up which hand goes where in the rhyme, don't allow them to forget about the game. Slow it down. Do it again and again. Simplify it by using just one or two elements in the sequence until they are mastered. This kind of game is really important especially if your child has trouble with reversals when reading and writing or gets confused about which side of the page to read first.