PRIMARY SCHOOLER

Physical Development of the

Primary Pupil
Learning Outcomes

At the end of the Module, you should be able to:

• Describe the different physical characteristics of
early school-age children in your own words.
• Enumerate ideas on how you can apply the
concepts in this module in the teaching- learning
process.
 What is Physical Development?
• Physical Development involves many different factors, height ,
weight, appearance, visual hearing and motor abilities. Primary
school children undergo many different changes as they go through
this stage of development.
• This could be caused by different factors; natural and environment.
ABSTRACTION/GENERALIZATION

Physical growth during the primary school years is

slow but steady. During this stage, physical
development involves:
• (1) having good muscle control and coordination,
• (2) developing eye-hand coordination,
• (3) having good personal hygiene and
• (4) being aware of good safety habits.
 Height and Weight
• In this development stage, children will have started their
elementary grades, specifically their primary years - Grades 1 to 3.
• This period of gradual and steady growth will give children time to
get used to the changes in their bodies. An average increase in.
• A number of factors could indicate how much a child grows, or how
much changes in the body will take place: Genes, Exercise,
Medical Conditions, Diseases / Illnesses, Food, Climate.
 Bones and Muscles
• Childhood years are the peak bone-producing years. This is the
best time to teach children of good dietary and exercise habits to
help them have strong, healthy bones throughout their lives. Many
lifestyle factors, like nutrition and physical activity, can substantially
influence the increase of bone mass during childhood.
• Because children's bones have proportionately more water and
protein-like materials and fewer minerals than adults, ensuring
adequate calcium intake will greatly help them in strengthening
bones and muscles.
 Motor Development
• Young school-aged children are gaining control over the major muscles of their
bodies. Most children have a good sense of balance. They like testing their
muscle strength and skills. They enjoy doing real- life tasks and activities. They
pretend and fantasize less often because they are more attuned with everything
that is happening around them.

• Children in this stage love to move a lot - they run, skip, hop, jump, tumble, roll
and dance. Because their gross motor skills are already developed, they can now
perform activities like catching a ball with one hand, tying their shoelaces, they
can manage zippers and buttons.
 Motor Development
• Performing unimanual (require the use one hand) and bi-
manual (require the use of two hands) activities becomes
easier. Children's graphic activities, such as writing and
drawing, are now more controlled but are still developing.
They can print their names and copy simple designs,
letters and shapes. They hold pencils, crayons, utensils
correctly with supervision.
• Motor development skills include coordination, balance,
speed, agility and power.
 Definitions of the different motor skills
• Coordination is a series of movements organized and timed to occur in a particular
way to bring about a particular result (Strickland, 2000).
• Balance is the child's ability to maintain the equilibrium or stability of his/her body in
different positions. Balance is a basic skill needed especially in this stage, when
children are very active. During this time, children have improved balancing skills.
• Static balance is the ability to maintain equilibrium in a fixed position, like balancing
on one foot.
• Dynamic balance is the ability to maintain equilibrium while moving (Owens, 2006).
• Speed is the ability to cover a great distance in the shortest possible time while agility
is one's ability to quickly change or shift the direction of the body. These skills are
extremely important in most sports.
• Power is the ability to perform a maximum effort in the shortest possible period.
References

• A. Barad, S. Tungar, N. Sangle, K. Bharambe and D. P. Kadam, " Physical Development," 2017
psychology studies, Coimbatore, India, 2017, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/ICIIECS.2017.8276052.
• Amin, M., & Ananda, R. (2020, August). Childhood years are the peak bone-producing years. In
International Conference on Social, Sciences and Information Technology (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 53-
60).
• Burns, M., & Wesley, J. (2022). Motor development of a child. Grand Valley State University
• Cao, H., Gonzales, J., Dimetry, N., Cate, J., Huynh, R., & Le, H. T. (2019). Improvment on child
studies: such as writing and drawing. International Journal of Education and Learning Systems, 4.
• Maroma, A. N. (2014). Bones and muscle of children development: psychology studies. Open
Access Library Journal, 1(09), e1156.
• Rai, H. M., Sisodiya, P., & Agrawal, I. (2016). movements organized and timed. International
Research Journal of psychology for children., 3(5), 1278-1281.
• Tirmare, A. H., Khandare, V. V., & Mali, P. S. (2015). Definitions of the different motor
skills. International Journal of psychology for children, Social Sciences, 5(6), 22-29.