How I can help
First-grade readiness
Readiness for first grade is not knowing the letters. It is being able to sit and organise, hold a pencil comfortably, follow classroom instructions, cope with frustration and keep up with a group.
What you might notice
- Your child avoids drawing, colouring or pencil activities
- Pencil grip looks awkward, or keeps changing
- Sitting at a table for an age-appropriate stretch is hard
- Difficulty organising themselves — bag, clothes, belongings
- The kindergarten teacher has raised questions about the transition
- Your child seems mature in conversation but struggles with doing tasks
Why this might be happening
First grade raises the demands all at once: more sitting, more written work, more independence and less one-to-one support.
Sometimes the difficulty comes from fine motor skills that are still consolidating, sometimes from planning and organisation, and sometimes simply from differences in developmental pace — which are entirely normal.
The point of looking at this now is to understand what is temporary and typical, and what is worth strengthening in advance so your child starts the year feeling capable.
What skills are involved
Fine motor skills and pencil grip
Hand strength, finger stability and control of a writing tool.
Visual-motor integration
Translating what the eyes see into precise hand movement — copying, drawing shapes, forming letters.
Planning and organisation
Knowing how to start a task, in what order, and how to finish it.
Regulation and persistence
Staying with a challenging task instead of giving up straight away.
How occupational therapy can help
- A clear picture of what is already in place and what is still developing
- Focused work on the underlying skills — not only rehearsing the task itself
- Practical guidance for home and kindergarten, without turning it into a battle
- Support through the transition itself, where useful
What Shira might assess
- Fine motor skills, grasp and pencil control
- Copying, shape drawing and orientation on the page
- Motor planning and organisation in space
- Attention, persistence and coping with frustration within a task
- Participation in age-appropriate everyday activities
When it's worth speaking to someone
- When there is a gap between what your child seems to understand and what they manage in practice
- When an educator raises a concern ahead of first grade
- When avoiding table-top activities has become a consistent pattern
Worth saying
A single sign doesn't mean a child needs therapy. Children develop at different rates, and often this is entirely ordinary variation. The point of a conversation is to understand the picture, not to find a problem.
Not sure exactly what your child needs? You can start with a conversation.
You don't need to diagnose the difficulty yourself. You can simply describe what you're seeing, and we'll start from a shared understanding of whether an occupational therapy assessment or treatment is appropriate.