Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Learning Environments Teaching preschooler to hold pencil

Any tips on helping a preschooler learn to hold a pencil. Our DS 3:5 is a little bored in his current age room. Accelerating him to the 4s room is a possibility, but pencil holding may hold him back. Right now he uses a fist grip on a crayon and likes to do mazes in workbooks from time to time.

Break the crayons so small he can't fist grip.

Golf pencils (do the same thing as a broken crayon, makes it so you have to have a proper grip).

Handwriting without tears (10 minutes a day...lots of information about grip)

Playdoh and other arts and crafts activities to strengthen hands.

Pencil grips that you can find online from OT websites.

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That said 3.5 is young. But I would incorporated some of these things whenever possible and all of them at age four if he still hasn't fixed his grip.

My son paid the price for no one fixing his grip until first grade....I tried, believe me. But he wasn't always in my site when doing paper activities and there is so much more to life at home than doing things with a pencil. Finally the first grade teacher made it her mission and it wasn't long before he figured it was easier to comply. His handwriting is still so bad he was evaluated by an OT this year (4th grade).

Thanks! The playdoh/crafts and the stubby crayon I think will be helpful for us right now. I am less interested in writing right now, than in getting him set up for success with writing when the time comes by doing fun stuff. He does seem to favor the right for throwing and writing but is still ambidextrous for some tasks (like eating).

I saw a tip recently that's genius. Wad up a tissue and close your fist around it, then extend the thumb and index finger. It automatically puts your hand into pencil-gripping form. All you have to do is set the pencil in, facing the right direction.

This is how big boys hold their pencils. Repeat as necessary.

DS still wasn't holding a pencil correctly by age 4 so we put him in private OT and the OT basically forced him to hold it with his fingers (using constant reminders). The K teacher and his old first grade teacher made him use pencil grips but I honestly think it made everything worse. Now he is not using a grip and his handwriting is age-appropriate. His handwriting improved dramatically the moment he switched teachers and didn't have to use a pencil grip anymore. DS is low tone and his fingers simply can not be forced into a tripod position. I should say they can be forced but then the writing becomes more difficult and messy. I don't hold a pencil with a normal grasp either because my fingers have hypermobile joints. But my handwriting is fine. DS's current OT doesn't really care that his grasp isn't completely "correct" and doesn't make him do a mature tripod grasp or use a grip. So I guess my point is you can try a grip or a lot of reminders to get him to stop the palm grasp but I wouldn't stress too much if he uses some variation of a normal pencil grasp and it isn't completely "correct".

tHere are several grips that work bit the fist grip isn't one of them.

I'm not saying that a fist grip (or grasp) is Ok, I'm saying that pencil grips may actually make things more difficult if they force a child's hands into mature tripod grasp before they are developmentally ready or they are physically incapable of it (in my case because of double jointed fingers and in DS's case he is low tone and weak). They are worth a try but I wish I hadn't pushed DS so hard to use a grip because it seemed to make things worse. He was able to switch from using a palmar grasp to the grasp he uses now (cross thumb) with reminders. I don't think his original OT tried to make him use a pencil grip. I might try again later if his hands get stronger but right now it doesn't help.

http://www.otplan.com/articles/pencil-grasp-patterns.aspx

This site discusses pencil grip more in depth, and has examples of various functional and nonfunctional grips. But it also has a long list of fun pre-writing activities to strengthen both the fingers/hand and the wrist (which is often forgotten, but just as crucial to a functional grip).