holding pencil/crayon

[Tondi G]

any special tricks to help my 4 yr old learn how to hold a pencil correctly? He is trying more and more to color and write his name etc. but he constantly fights me when I attempt to show him how to hold the pencil properly. Is there anything I can do?

Thanks

[WatchingThemGrow]

Use tiny pencils (golf pencils) and crayons so he can only get a tripod grasp. Where's Brittone2, she's always really good at this stuff!!! There are exercises to get them using those three fingers for other things first, which makes moving to a pencil easier. I think holding a cotton ball under the pinky then practicing moving beans from one container to another, stuff like that..

[JTsMom]

Jason's OT would tell him to make a backwards L and go from there- for some reason, that helped. Tiny crayons, pencils, chalk, etc. are good. Fat markers can also help. You can do the holding a cotton ball thing, and the pinching type games- tweezers and rice, clothespin and cotton balls, making letters out of beans, etc.

[catpagmo]

DD's preschool teacher recommended using Crayola's "pip squeak" markers. She said they are easier for little hands to hold. My DD is 4 also. I saw several small 8 packs of these at Target in the kid's book section for $1.xx.

[ett]

Break the crayons so that they have to use a tripod grip to hold it. We have these crayon rocks too and they're good for working on the correct grip.

http://www.crayonrocks.net/

[almostamom]

Another vote for the crayon rocks. I bought them specifically to help DS with his grip.

[Elilly]

This video might help give you an idea or two:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM_dia8QGr0&feature=related
Also, we used the Handwriting without Tears flip crayons and were very pleased with them.

[MamaKath]

Finger tip crayons, triangular crayons (teachers stores have these, but Crayola now makes some too), mini markers and pencils, rock crayons, and pyramid crayons all can be helpful.