ISSN: 2226-6348
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Fundamental movement skills (FMS) matter for young children’s motor development and physical activity yet simply providing movement opportunities does not guarantee that these skills develop; what teachers do with those opportunities also counts. This qualitative systematic review examined how FMS teaching is enabled, constrained, and enacted in early childhood education. Using the Joanna Briggs Institute meta-aggregative approach, we searched five databases for studies published between 2020 and 2025. Ten studies involving 214 participants met the eligibility criteria. Ninety-one extracted findings were grouped into five categories and aggregated into three synthesized findings, each receiving a moderate ConQual confidence rating. Across the studies, FMS teaching depended on the conditions in which teachers worked, their pedagogical capacity, and the instructional support available to them. Teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and value orientations cut across all three synthesized findings. Educators generally valued movement, but this recognition did not reliably translate into intentional, developmentally sequenced FMS teaching. Read through pedagogical mediation, the findings point to FMS teaching as a product of the interplay between teachers and their settings, not of teacher competence alone. Strengthening FMS teaching therefore calls for both teacher development and settings that let teachers put their knowledge into practice.
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