I have written elsewhere about the importance of handwriting skills and their development for children.

There are the rudiments of learning that I have an estimate the value in developing coordination capacity and find motor skills for children. These things all take time and unfortunately are often discounted for the sake of expediency.

If it’s required the traits of paper be pasted into scrapbooks, in terms of time it can be easier and quicker for teachers and assistance to complete that activity. Having children do their own growing takes longer time and creates mess! However unless children practice glueing the skill is going to escape them and ultimately they will be the poorer for not being able to do this independently on their own.

The same goes for cutting, colouring, and other skills requiring physical manipulation and metal dexterity on the part of children.

When children are in the very lower grades of the school, I believe they should have the opportunity under teacher guidance to develop the ability to work independently with materials which include cutting, colouring, glueing and similar. It will take time but in the end pays dividends.

Once children have a mastery of these basic skills and, their ability to apply them in terms of general overall school work will pay dividends in terms of the time it takes to complete particular activities. Rather than shuddering and having aversion to children working with these materials, I believe the teachers should embrace the opportunity to develop with them their skills in these fields.

It may seem easier for teachers assistance to undertake direct these activities on behalf of children in the short-term. However in the long run children without the ability to manipulate materials and use them correctly will be the losers.