The influence of the games on the psychomotor development of the children at the age of nine

The development in early childhood is the most important and critical stage in life. This stage underlies the grounds of the developments in the future. A sound ground affects a great deal a child?s individual development; his friends, school and family life. To be succesfull at all these areas is only achieved by providing the child with such environments which give opportunity to gain experiences.It is obvious that the first places in which that kind of support is given are the school and the family as the aim of the educators and the families is to grow up individuals who are healthy at any part of life. The education provided at schools should not deal only with a child?s cognitive, social and emotional well-being, but it should also give importance to the physical and psychomotor developmental areas which may be the basis for all the other areas. The education given and the games played at the course of Physical Education are the most efficient supporters at these areas.Games are not such activities that are just practised at home or at school. Especially, games should constantly be played besides the education provided at schools. It should be known that the games which have educational value are useful at every stage in the education process.Actual games are played in childhood. Childhood passes consistently by the games played. The games played in this period help the child to give shape to his future or to himself in the future. The child finds the opportunity to develop his skills, and he takes the chance to realise his social role in society and his characteristic features that make him different from other individuals. Therefore, the influence of games on the development of a child is impossible to ignore.The place the games have in the physical and psychomotor developmental areas is more important than the other areas. In the majority of the studies, these two areas are taken as the bases, and the other developmental areas are considered to be influenced by them. Similarly, the psychomotor skills and their development are taken as the bases for this study.The scope of the study is the third grade students at the age of nine in the primary schools in the city centre of Erzincan within the academic year 2007-2008. The specific scope of the study is determined via the method of group exemplification; the specific scope is composed of the third graders (at the age of nine) in Melikşah İlköğretim Okulu, Vali Recep YAZICIOĞLU İlköğretim Okulu and Ziya GÖKALP İlköğretim Okulu within the academic year 2007?2008.In the study, the model with pre-test and post-test control group is used. Both in the pre-test and post-test, motor performance test, which is generated by Morris, Atwater, Williams and Wilmore in1980 in order to test rough motor skills of the children at the ages of 3-10 , and which is practised by Sevimay in 1986 on the 205 children at the ages of 3-6, is used to test motor performances of the children; therefore, throwing, grasping, jumping, running and stopping skills are measured.In the study, the experimental group played games which are thought to improve the rough and delicate motor skills under the care and with the help of their own teacher or a teacher of Physical Education course during fourteen weeks with two-hour?seances. In this study that is based on the model with pre-test and post-test, Independent Samples t Test is used in order to compare the datum of the running, stopping, throwing a ball, grasping a ball, jumping forward and upward skills of the students in both experimental and control groups while Paired Samples t Test is used to compare the datum of the running, stopping, throwing a ball, grasping a ball, jumping forward and upward skills of the students within each group.As a consequence of the study; according to the results of the neutrality comparison of the pre-test and post-test datum of the experimental and control groups, there are no significant differences among the groups? running, stopping, throwing a ball, grasping a ball, jumping forward and upward skills, and between their weights and heights; that is, the children have no advantages in those skills, but only in the stopping skill. This result is the indicator of the fact that there is not a homogenous distribution peculiar to this skill between the groups.According to the comparison results obtained from the datum of the pre-test and post-test applied to the experimental group, it is found out that, without making gender difference, there is an improvement in the children?s running, stopping, throwing a ball, grasping a ball, jumping forward and upward skills with the help the games, and that there appears a significant difference except for the stopping skill. Only in the girls? running, stopping, throwing a ball, grasping a ball, jumping forward and upward skills, it is observed that there is an improvement and a significant difference with the help of the games except for the running skill while in the boys? running, stopping, throwing a ball, grasping a ball, jumping forward and upward skills it is observed that there is also an improvement and a significant difference with the help of the games but except for stopping and grasping a ball.As for the control group; according to the comparison results obtained from the datum of the pre-test and post-test; without making gender difference, it is found out that there is an improvement in the children?s running, jumping forward and upward skills and there appears a significant difference except for stopping, throwing a ball and grasping a ball skills. Only in the girls? running, jumping forward and upward skills it is observed that there is an improvement and a significant difference except for stopping, throwing a ball and grasping a ball skills while in the boys? running, jumping forward and upward skills, it is observed that there is also an improvement and a significant difference except for stopping, throwing a ball and grasping a ball skills.Key Words: The Development, Psychomotor Skills, Games, Children and Games