Teachers play a crucial role in promoting motor development in early childhood. A series of focus-group discussions was conducted with kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong to co-design movement activities. This paper reports the process and implications to teachers’ professional development. Copyright © 2021 International Review of Finance Ltd.

Over the past two decades children's fitness levels may have declined (Ross and Pate, 1987; Ignico, 1990; Leung, 1995). Currently, attention is being directed to young children's gross motor performance, assessment procedures and program planning issues. This paper will present findings of a study which investigates the gross motor proficiency of young children in Hong Kong. The Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (Subtests 1-5) was used to assess the gross motor proficiency of 320 children aged 5 to 6 years. Gross motor proficiency was measured in terms of their performance on running speed and agility, balance, bilateral coordination, strength and upper-limb coordination.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443011710102]

The present paper describes the results of a two-year project aimed at developing a motor performance test instrument for a motor performance award scheme for kindergarten children to be organized by the Hong Kong Childhealth Foundation. The subjects were 1404 K1 to K3 children, aged three years, three months to six years, ten months. A set of tests developed for Hong Kong kindergarten children was administered to measure their gross motor proficiency. Boys were superior to girls on agility and throwing. Girls performed better than boys on static balance. It was found that a marked improvement in agility was found at the age of 5.5 years. After four years of age, children's static balance also improved. As expected, young children's overall gross motor performance improved, and this was seen as being age-related. The modified set of tests for motor performance was found suitable for use in measuring gross motor performance of children participating in the award scheme for Hong Kong kindergarten children.
[Copyright of Early Child Development and Care is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0300443022000022468]