Brains are complex. As are children. And the complex, interrelated nature of how brains grow and develop is a never-ending source of fascination for researchers.

I think it’s fair to say that we have a way to go until the intricacies of the growing brain are well-enough understood to fully guide teachers in the classroom. For the moment, we largely have to rely on our observations and hunches about what helps and what doesn’t.

But occasionally I feel a joyful “aha!” moment when I read a study (or group of studies), and this was definitely the case when I read the recent paper by a team of researchers in Germany and York.

Using a sample of 76 children aged between 3 and 6, researchers explored the link between fine motor skills (small muscle movements requiring close hand-to-eye coordination) and spoken language. They found that children with higher fine motor skills scores also showed higher receptive and expressive vocabulary scores and more pronounced oral narrative skills (an important contributor to later reading comprehension and language development).

Fine motor skills linked to spoken language

As yet, there is no definitive theory to explain these links. But for practitioners, perhaps the why is not as important. It is enough for us to understand that we should be exploring the classrooms where our youngest children learn and ensuring that they are supported to develop these essential fine motor movements. Not just to prepare children to write - but to develop their communication and reading skills (among other things).

More from Megan Dixon:

• Is this how to close the gap between research and the classroom?
• Can you trust a reading age?
• A simple but radical new way to assess writing

So, can I suggest that there is a coordinated, national Bring Back Binca campaign? Some of us will remember learning to sew using small pieces of binca hessian with holes in. Or perhaps we should focus on bringing back pegboards and making daisy chains and threaded bead necklaces or sticking multi-coloured lentils on to sugar paper to make pictures of owls?

I’m joking, of course - there are so many different (more contemporary) ways of supporting children to develop hand-to-eye coordination and dextrous fine motor control.

However, it is good to remind ourselves there was often method and value in old-fashioned ways of teaching, even if we didn’t quite know why.

Megan Dixon is a doctoral student and associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University

For the latest research, pedagogy and practical classroom advice delivered directly to your inbox every week, sign up to our Teaching Essentials newsletter