How to Teach Young Children to Throw a Baseball

Throwing is one of the fundamental skills children need to learn to play baseball. It like dribbling in basketball or getting the proper stroke in swimming is highly complex in its coordination of movements. It can be a difficult skill, at first, for young children to learn. As a result, there are certain modifications and techniques that can be implemented that make the technical side less of an emphasis and the fun highlighted. Essentially, the goal is to help young children overcome these coordination difficulties.

Baseball and other sports have long lacked the NOVELTY AND CONTRAST that young children enjoy when they learn. The training exercises and coaching techniques in this and my other hubs offer you both written instruction and the videos that provide you a firsthand account of how the exercises work for young children.

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Teaching Time: 4 minutes

# of steps: 4 easy steps

Level of Instructional Difficulty: Easy

Ages Appropriate for: 2 years +

Keywords: Toothpick, Ball, Wall, Broken, Roof, Loose

Parent/coach will:

1. better understand how young children think about sports
2. better understand how to modify teachings to fit the ways young children think about sports
3. keep sports simple
4. make learning fun

Getting children to throw and throw with confidence requires that we open them up. Early on in a baseball class, after their warm-up of standing in rings and throwing at the jelly beans on our instructional signs, I will bring them together to play the ouch game. It is a simple concept, the kids get baseballs, soft rag balls, and they throw them at me. Every time it hits me, I say "Ouch!"

The game is fun for them but it also gives me a chance to evaluate the throwing technique of the children, their arm strength and potential areas of throwing improvement. I admit it is an unconventional way of coaching but it is something young children really get into.

Begin by standing near a wall or a curtain.

1. Create a toothpick (straight arm) out in front with baseball in hand. For really young children, skip this step and begin with step 2.
2. Ball-to-the-wall Kiss the ball to the wall. This requires the ball to be extended straight behind the body. The key to this step is to make a fun kissing sound as ball touches wall. It adds novelty to the instruction and helps seed the learning. (Repeat Steps 1 & 2 bringing the ball front to back twice more)
3. Broken toothpick (Create a cracking sound [this is fun for kids] and bend at elbow.) (Start from the beginning and do it twice more, [repetition is a key to kids learning retention]
4. Loose-at-the-roof™ (Extend broken toothpick above head straightening arm and throwing the ball at something fun)

• Have patience
• Be hands-off in your coaching
• Teach to all children not just the best learners
• Be kind, avoid frustration...have patience

• Add the step, and then Loose-at-the-roof
• Field and throw
• Long throw