Pencil grip

[niccig]

DS will hold a pencil correctly, but he holds it half-way along the pencil - so it's not quite right. He refuses to hold the pencil closer to the point. Any suggestions for pencils/crayons/markers that will help me to do this? He prefers to use my pens, but that's not helping us.

Thanks.

[bubbaray]

A teacher friend of mine recommended small pencils, like golf pencils.

[newg]

if you go to a teacher store there are lots of grippers and other things you can add to any pen or pencil to help with grip!

[elliput]

A teacher friend of mine recommended small pencils, like golf pencils.

:yeahthat: DD's occupational therapist recommended breaking all of her crayons and chalk into little pieces in order to encourage a correct grasp (her problem is a gross/fist grasp). Also, you might try having your DS practice on a slanted or vertical surface.

[rwiklendt]

:yeahthat: DD's occupational therapist recommended breaking all of her crayons and chalk into little pieces in order to encourage a correct grasp (her problem is a gross/fist grasp). Also, you might try having your DS practice on a slanted or vertical surface.

:yeahthat: Really little pieces like 1/4 inch. A friend of ours told me that is what her DD's preschool does and highly recommends.

[niccig]

Thanks...I'll try the small pencils/crayons.
I'm a little worried that we're behind - crazy when he's only 4 - but he's shown no interest in tracing anything..not even shapes or lines. He still scribbles when he draws. He likes to do things "his" way, so I haven't pushed tracing worksheets or anything. We start pre-K in Sept at a developmental elementary school. We might practice a little before then, but I'll keep it pretty light.

[TonFirst]

Does he like stencils? I went to Michael's and let my son pick out a few racecar stencils and he has a ball tracing the outlines of the stencils and coloring them in.

[rwiklendt]

He likes to do things "his" way, so I haven't pushed tracing worksheets or anything.

I just went though Pre-K with a 'my way' child - in fact DD got a needs improvement on writing her name because she wanted to spell it with one less 'e' for a while - "It's my name, I can spell it how I want." Ahhh... I am a rule/direction follower and I thought I was going to go out of my mind with her lack of compliance. I tried everything to get her to practice things at home, do her recommended 'homework' and unless I could disguise it as 'fun' she would have no part of it. She would read for her teacher at school, but would have no part of the same books at home. I laid off and this summer she has made up her mind that she would learn to read all of her 'Bob Books'. Her work at the beginning of the year was much worse at school than I had seen her do at home and she hardly followed the directions. Her teacher told me to relax about it and we would take a look at things around the new year. By then she was doing much better and by the end of the year her schoolwork was 1000x better than when she started. It was a rocky start to the year, but I hung in there and we all survived. I'm hoping we do not go through the same power struggle this year!

FWIW - there was a very wide range of art work/writing ability by students in my DD's class. At the end of the year there were still kids whose writing I could not read at all.

[niccig]

Does he like stencils? I went to Michael's and let my son pick out a few racecar stencils and he has a ball tracing the outlines of the stencils and coloring them in.

Great idea. We'll go tomorrow and pick some up.

[niccig]

I just went though Pre-K with a 'my way' child - in fact DD got a needs improvement on writing her name because she wanted to spell it with one less 'e' for a while - "It's my name, I can spell it how I want." Ahhh... I am a rule/direction follower and I thought I was going to go out of my mind with her lack of compliance. I tried everything to get her to practice things at home, do her recommended 'homework' and unless I could disguise it as 'fun' she would have no part of it. She would read for her teacher at school, but would have no part of the same books at home. I laid off and this summer she has made up her mind that she would learn to read all of her 'Bob Books'. Her work at the beginning of the year was much worse at school than I had seen her do at home and she hardly followed the directions. Her teacher told me to relax about it and we would take a look at things around the new year. By then she was doing much better and by the end of the year her schoolwork was 1000x better than when she started. It was a rocky start to the year, but I hung in there and we all survived. I'm hoping we do not go through the same power struggle this year!

FWIW - there was a very wide range of art work/writing ability by students in my DD's class. At the end of the year there were still kids whose writing I could not read at all.

Oh, I can see this being DS. We play baseball with friends. DS can hit a ball that you pitch. My friend has to be the one to show DS how to improve his swing etc, he will not let me do it. He is very much all about doing it HIS way, but he isn't so stubborn when it's someone else. His pre-K and elementary are developmental, so I hope they're fine with a child that won't draw/trace etc. I try to introduce concepts, but if I'm meet with stone wall resistance, I back off and try again later. DS's new school does not give homework until grade 1, so I can at least put off the homework battle for a couple more years.

[egoldber]

I agree that you will be amazed at the range of abilities. I remember when Sarah was in 4 year old preschool there were kids with beautiful penmanship and others who could only scribble. (Sarah was in the latter category.)

By second grade it's a *little* better. ;) But I'm still amazed when I see the range of handwriting skill and style of the kids in her class.

[TonFirst]

What I have noticed at my son's preschool is that, almost without exception, the children who have handwriting and penmanship that is exceptional for their age are the kids who have older siblings. My son, our firstborn, who is 4.5 and reads fluently at about a 2nd grade level, can barely write his name in a straight line. His pencil grip is iffy, and it has only been in the past few months that he's actually enjoyed coloring and makes a good effort to stay in the lines and not "scribble-scrabble," as he puts it. The kids who have older siblings? They're writing their names and many other words with properly-formed upper and lowercase letters.

I know that he is perfectly age-appropriate with his writing, but this summer we're really trying to up his fine motor - the stencils have been a huge hit, and he's liked doing lacing cards (which have also been a good lesson in patience for him). We sort buttons and string buttons on pipe cleaners, and we're working on his cutting, too. I've found some great cutting worksheets online and those have been a success. Especially when I'm trying to occupy him around suppertime!

[rlu]

Oh, I can see this being DS. We play baseball with friends. DS can hit a ball that you pitch. My friend has to be the one to show DS how to improve his swing etc, he will not let me do it. He is very much all about doing it HIS way, but he isn't so stubborn when it's someone else.

This is DS exactly. He played coach-pitch t-ball and was great listening to the coaches, but if we tried to practice with him at home - forget it! Same thing with swimming, writing and coloring. We tried to do practice sheets with him during the school year and he just didn't want to - made a big to do about it. He did the packets at pre-K just fine - although by the end of the school year the writing sheets were a mess but he was still doing the math sheets. Maybe he got bored with the writing - IIRC he did the writing sheets where you add a letter to make a word, but straight out tracing letters weren't being done, hmm.

PP, DS does not hold the pencil correctly. He made huge improvements this past year in pre-K, the teacher really knew how to approach him and have him grip the marker correctly. We used the triangle thing on the marker and that helps but he pushes it up the marker to the middle, not close to the tip. I think the golf pencil idea is marvelous - need to see if I can find some. DS prefers to use markers to write, will have to see if I can find any little bitty ones. OT - my friend recounted to me a tale of woe, her DH found these "cute little markers" for Christmas for their daughters to use, unfortunately she didn't realize they were sharpies which most definitely are not washable.

[happymom]

:yeahthat: DD's occupational therapist recommended breaking all of her crayons and chalk into little pieces in order to encourage a correct grasp (her problem is a gross/fist grasp). Also, you might try having your DS practice on a slanted or vertical surface.

Yup. Preschool teacher here. We ONLY use broken crayons with my 4-5 year olds at the request of the OT's. Writing on a vertical surface like an easel is also a great idea.

[niccig]

I'll break the crayons and we have those small marker pens, I think they're crayola brand. I'll put away all our normal sized ones. We'll try lacing cards, and stringing buttons onto pipe cleaners. I have a cutting book, that we've done a little work with. He also likes to do mazes. I think my difficulty is getting him to do an activity like this. If he wants to do it, fine. But if he doesn't, and he much prefers to use his blocks and build a lifeguard tower complete with toilet and windows so the lifeguard can go potty and still watch the beach - we were at the beach today and he wanted to know if there was a toilet inside the lifeguard tower, and was surprised when I said I didn't think there was. I'll have to work on my powers of persuasion, or let's cut first and then build the lifeguard tower. He also needs to do things more slowly, he rushes through them...I'm getting a taste of my childhood according to my mother.

[plusbellelavie]

My oldest son school used the Handwriting without Tears program to teach them to write and I thought it was wonderful...they used the golf pencils...I thought it was such a great way to learn that I bought the program to teach my daughter to write...they even have a program for cursive writing.

Their website

http://www.hwtears.com/

[mytwosons]

I'll break the crayons and we have those small marker pens, I think they're crayola brand. I'll put away all our normal sized ones. We'll try lacing cards, and stringing buttons onto pipe cleaners. I have a cutting book, that we've done a little work with. He also likes to do mazes. I think my difficulty is getting him to do an activity like this. If he wants to do it, fine. But if he doesn't, and he much prefers to use his blocks and build a lifeguard tower complete with toilet and windows so the lifeguard can go potty and still watch the beach - we were at the beach today and he wanted to know if there was a toilet inside the lifeguard tower, and was surprised when I said I didn't think there was. I'll have to work on my powers of persuasion, or let's cut first and then build the lifeguard tower. He also needs to do things more slowly, he rushes through them...I'm getting a taste of my childhood according to my mother.

My DS1 was like this and I've heard a lot of moms of boys say the same thing. FWIW, he would do the activities in preschool, but never wanted to do them at home. I saw friends' children (usually girls) sit and color by choice and wished my son would do that. But, as I heard from friends, a switch got flipped in Kinder and my son LOVES to write and color now. The OT said his writing is the best in his class. (This after a delay!)

Have you tried giving him a little notebook, so he can write/draw scribble whatever he wants inside?

It's easier said than done, but I would just give it time. He's young and he might be like the other boys I've seen who don't enjoy such activities until Kindergarten.

[egoldber]

I'm just wondering why you think you need to work with him at all? If he is not particularly behind or have some kind of diagnosed delay, I wouldn't worry about it.

[bnme]

My 4-5 year old was like this. His preschool teacher warned me to try to to correct him. You don't want handwriting to be a struggle. We tried the grippers and he seemed to do better with those (without much intervention from us). And I agree on the smaller ones. The Handwring W/O Tears series comes with the smaller crayons and I noticed the preschool kids all using them. My DS also liked to use pens so I would let him if at the table and nothing around he could mess up.

Now at 6.5 my DS is writing fine and holding the pencil correctly.

[maestramommy]

Thanks...I'll try the small pencils/crayons.
I'm a little worried that we're behind - crazy when he's only 4 - but he's shown no interest in tracing anything..not even shapes or lines. He still scribbles when he draws. He likes to do things "his" way, so I haven't pushed tracing worksheets or anything. We start pre-K in Sept at a developmental elementary school. We might practice a little before then, but I'll keep it pretty light.


I was a little worried about Dora too. One of my friends has a dd the same age and she's been drawing stick figures for the longest time. All correct too. Dora has finally gotten around to drawing smiley faces. Otherwise she just scribbles too. And she holds her pencils correctly. She's just on her own wavelength. I figured this out after she started adding ears, fingers and toes to her smiley face:p

[Raidra]

My 4-5 year old was like this. His preschool teacher warned me to try to to correct him. You don't want handwriting to be a struggle.

See, this is why I *wouldn't* bother trying to correct it. There are a lot of things to battle with kids over, and almost none of them are really worth it in the end. He'll learn on his own that he gets better results and is more comfortable holding it the conventional way. What does a 4 year old really need to be writing, anyway? Give him time.. boys are often way behind girls on this sort of thing anyway. Go ahead and give him smaller writing implements if you want, but if he balks at using them, let him use whatever he's comfortable with. I'd much rather have a kid who enjoys writing using whatever grip he wants than a kid who looks at writing with dread because he knows the fuss his mom is going to kick up about his grip.

Huge "Yeah That" to Beth who said not to worry about it.

[caleymama]

You've rec'd great advice already, just wanted to add one link that I think I originally got here.

http://thewritestart.typepad.com/

I've really enjoyed browsing through this blog and think there are some really neat ideas.

[TonFirst]

Thanks for the link to that blog - what a gem it is!

[newg]

playing with play-dough and sand will help build the muscles in the hand that are used with fine-motor skills......
in my kinder-first classroom I would put small objects in the sand and then have the kids use extra-large tweezers to find and pick up the objects.
We'd use play-dough and they could only use their hands, or smaller tools to shape it.....
Even cutting thick construction paper helps.....

[niccig]

I'm just wondering why you think you need to work with him at all? If he is not particularly behind or have some kind of diagnosed delay, I wouldn't worry about it.


I'm just questioning if we need to help encourage him. I don't know what to expect for pre-writing skills. I'm not talking about writing actual letters. I have left DS do his own thing, and he doesn't show any interest in anything more than scribble. I haven't shown him how to to draw anything. I can see that children with siblings have been exposed to drawing/writing a certain way. I understand that it is not an interest of his, but I wonder if he's not interested because he finds it more difficult to do than other activities. I like the ideas of the stencils, lacing cards, and other activities that help develop the muscles/skills he will need for writing when he is ready.

[JTsMom]

DS has some minor fine motor issues. He never had much of an interest in writing on plain paper, but I recently bought the Kumon tracing book for him and he LOOOOVED it. He blew threw the whole book in no time, and actually asked to do it on his own. I limited it to 3 pages a day, and I think that helped keep it a novel thing to do.

Amazon had a deal on the books- don't know if it's still going or not, but I bought 4 more, and he's really liking those as well.

And ditto all of the great suggestions above.

One other hand strengthening trick that we learned in OT was hiding beads in playdough, and having him squeeze to find them. That's been a hit as well. Also, has anyone mentioned using tweezers to put seeds/beans/etc on glue to form letters/shapes? One last one- writing with his finger in sand may help as well. Gotta run- sorry this was so choppy.

[egoldber]

I'm just questioning if we need to help encourage him. I don't know what to expect for pre-writing skills. I'm not talking about writing actual letters. I have left DS do his own thing, and he doesn't show any interest in anything more than scribble.

My only point is that as long as there is no particular issue to be concerned about, I would be very careful about creating any sort of power struggle. There will be plenty of time for that in the future over homework, etc. ;)

Nothing wrong with encouraging things like playdoh, Legos, smaller writing instruments (although my older DD would have refused to use broken crayons, she likes things just so, LOL!!) etc. But I wouldn't go out of my way to practice writing with a 4 year old.

Mazes and tracing are great, but I just think that 4 is awfully little and so much happens developmentally between 4 and 6, when most kids are asked to really start writing.

[fivi2]

I'm just questioning if we need to help encourage him. I don't know what to expect for pre-writing skills. I'm not talking about writing actual letters. I have left DS do his own thing, and he doesn't show any interest in anything more than scribble. I haven't shown him how to to draw anything. I can see that children with siblings have been exposed to drawing/writing a certain way. I understand that it is not an interest of his, but I wonder if he's not interested because he finds it more difficult to do than other activities. I like the ideas of the stencils, lacing cards, and other activities that help develop the muscles/skills he will need for writing when he is ready.

My girls are a bit younger, but one shows a lot of interest in trying to write (the other, not as much). One thing I do to encourage her is to have her write "lists". If she thinks of something she needs at the store :) or whatever, she puts it on a list in her notebook. Sometimes she will ask me how to spell it, sometimes she draws a picture, sometimes she makes up random letters and scribbles. It is up to her. Or she will write labels for things, or draw maps, or plans for her latest building...

Of course, all of this is with a child who is already showing an interest in this area. So, maybe you can encourage him to "write" things down in everyday activities he enjoys. (keeping score for a game he likes to play, writing a story, drawing up plans for a building, etc)

The other dd (the one who shows less interest) had me worried because her twin was writing letters and drawing recognizable pics while she was just grabbing and scribbling. Almost overnight, the second twin has started drawing recognizable pics (although still not much interest in writing). My point is, ITA with the pps that this changes quickly at these young ages! Good luck!

[niccig]

My only point is that as long as there is no particular issue to be concerned about, I would be very careful about creating any sort of power struggle. There will be plenty of time for that in the future over homework, etc. ;)

Nothing wrong with encouraging things like playdoh, Legos, smaller writing instruments (although my older DD would have refused to use broken crayons, she likes things just so, LOL!!) etc. But I wouldn't go out of my way to practice writing with a 4 year old.

Mazes and tracing are great, but I just think that 4 is awfully little and so much happens developmentally between 4 and 6, when most kids are asked to really start writing.

Beth, I totally understand what you are saying. I'll keep it low-key and fun and we won't be writing letters at all. I just want some activities that we can do that will help with the muscle development - I'm very unstructured with him at home, and we could incorporate a few things taht are fun, but aren't his normal block/car play. I definitely can't "push" DS with anything. He's as stubborn as DH and I put together - which both sets of grandparents are really enjoying!