7 FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICAL READINESS SKILLS

Click on each skill to read a detailed description.

• BALANCE - Balance is the ability to move your body under control.
  
  
• GENERAL COORDINATION - General coordination is the ability to coordinate movement.

• BODY IMAGE - Body image is the ability to understand one's own body and its relationship to other things.
  
  
• HAND-EYE COORDINATION - Hand-eye coordination is being able to use your hands and your eyes effectively at the same time.

• LATERALITY - Laterality is knowing my left from right, top from bottom, and front from back.

• TACTILE TOUCH - Tactile touch is the ability to feel objects as they are meant to be felt.

• AUDIO RECEPTIVE / AUDIO EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE - Audio receptive / audio expressive language is the ability to hear and distinguish the basic sounds in a given language and to express those sounds in a distinguishable manner.
  
  Audio receptive/audio expressive language begins the moment the child is born, yet some children do not hear the basic sounds of language properly. This could be due to a hearing problem, but in many cases it is related to lack of concentration, local dialect, and the amount of language spoken to the child from outside sources. The same factors relate to the pronunciation of the sounds of a language: perhaps there is a speech problem, but more likely the child is lazy about forming the sounds, does not hear them properly and thus repeats only what he hears, or does not have much of a chance to verbalize with other people.

  During school a child may have trouble distinguishing what the teacher or other children are saying in the classroom. He may have trouble speaking out loud. He may begin to develop speech problems, such as stuttering, as other children make fun of him and lower his self-esteem. This makes answering questions or reading very frustrating.