FUNDAMENTAL MOVEMENT SKILLS TO CHILDREN

The Role of Feedback in the Teaching of Fundamental Movement Skills to Children: A Review of Literature



The Role of Feedback in the Teaching of Fundamental Movement Skills to Children: A Review of Literature

Introduction

Fundamental movement skills (FMS) are considered to be the building blocks that lead to specialized movement sequences required for adequate participation in many organized and non-organized physical activities for children, adolescents and adults. Commonly developed in childhood and subsequently refined into context- and sport-specific skills, they include movement skills (e.g. running and hopping), manipulative or object control (e.g. catching and throwing) and stability (e.g. balancing and twisting) skills. The mastery of FMS has been purported as contributing to children's physical, cognitive and social development and is thought to provide the foundation for an active lifestyle. Recently, FMS competency has been proposed to interact with perceptions of fundamental movement competence and health-related fitness to predict physical activity and subsequent obesity from childhood to adulthood.

While children may naturally develop a rudimentary form of fundamental movement pattern, a mature form of FMS proficiency is more likely to be achieved with appropriate practice, encouragement, feedback and instruction. Children who do not receive adequate movement skill instructions and practice may demonstrate developmental delays in their gross movement skills ability. As such, early childhood physical activity guidelines, such as the National Association for Sport and Physical Education's (NASPE) Active Start, indicate that the development of movement skills should be a key component of early childhood education programmes. Likewise, FMS competency is identified in National Standards as a primary goal of quality elementary school physical education in United Kingdom and represents an indicator of achievement for elementary school children in England's national physical education curriculum (Chambers, 2002, pp. 157-176).

A substantial body of literature reports on the development of fundamental movement skills, during early childhood. On the other hand, studies exploring mastery of Fundamental Movement Skills (FMS) in a healthy population are rather scarce. The majority of existing studies which assess children's FMS development focus on detection and assessment of children.

Authors who report on FMS proficiency have confirmed a surprisingly low prevalence of FMS mastery among third and fourth grade children and stress that the prevalence of FMS mastery among children is in need of improvement. It is well known that FMS mastery forms the foundation for learning advanced movement skills, such as sport-specific skills. In addition, it plays a vital role in the general development of children. Although physical activity (PA) and movement experience are valuable factors in the developmental process of FMS, nowadays a majority of children participate insufficiently in such activities. Given this knowledge, it becomes clear that there is a substantial need to stimulate the development of FMS with the focus on a healthy and physically active lifestyle. Utley, (2007, pp. 65-82) also reports on a Belgian trend that present 9-12-year-old Flemish youth are physically not as fit as children of the same age were in 1980. Several other authors report on an emerging decrease in neuro movement ...