How to help Year 1 child with poor pencil grip

[Thesnailonthewhale]

DD6 has a terrible pencil grip. See photo
She's 6 in Year 1 and the school are refusing to help correct the grip. Which is where she does most of her writing.

What can we do?

Having looked more closely at your picture I think hyper mobility is a good thought and worth a second opinion with a different GP.

It’s The way her index finger is so high on the pencil and the other fingers are clutching tightly but rather inaccurately. You’ve also talked about her being clumsy which can be an indicator for dyspraxia.

I am not an expert however but feel further investigation bearing in mind all you have done to support her so far.

How neat is her actual writing?

My daughter was the same she also has autism but it isn’t linked. The SENCO recommended smaller pencil which has hugely helped her.

how is her seating, does she sit in a W shape?

Yes we used this and also some sessions with an OT as there were also some issues with upper body strength and crossing the mid line. Worked a treat.

You could try these, you need to buy refill leads for them and learn how to fit them, but they are good. They help support the hand as well as train the correct grip so make writing less tiring for hands which are still learning muscle control (and at that age, still developing the final skeletal structure).

Other than that, try dough disco, look at Theraputty (buy a multi-pack so you can start on soft and gradually build up resistance), play games like operation or buy large plastic tweezers and use for moving small objects, peg games, anything to develop that pincer grip.

Just to add I’d be annoyed at the teacher for not supporting, do you have a year coordinator you can speak to? I. Our case it was the school teacher who spotted it, asked the principal for a subtle second opinion and then called us to discuss. I was very grateful.

The school I'm a ta at was like this. Guess what everyone is worried about now?!

Hi I’m an ex SENCO. You said something about her gross motor skills being undeveloped.
Gross comes before fine. You sound like you are doing lots of lovely fine motor activities already which is fab.
Alongside this make sure she is getting plenty opportunity for balancing, climbing - basically park play plus things like scooters bikes, spinning, skipping… anything she enjoys. Enjoyment is key!

Lots of colouring with stubby chalks or crayons so they are not long enough to hold like that.

I’d say don’t panic!
One of my sons had a terrible grip. He won the school A level prize for History and is now a hospital consultant.
He still can’t hold a pen “properly” though,

This is what my daughter's school said about her grip. They refused to intervene after year 2 because they said it was unchangeable at that point (completely ignoring the fact I'd been raising it as an issue since early year 1). It has massively impacted the clarity and speed of her handwriting.

Another one saying don’t panic! My left-handed daughter has a terrible pencil grip. Myself and school tried various things over the years and gave up in about year 4. She was one of the first in her year to get a pen license, had amazing stats results and is now thriving at secondary. English and creative writing is her skill/passion and there is nothing else going on. She just holds a pen in a crazy way!

Not really. Countless children have been put off writing altogether because they get nagged constantly about their grip, which ends up having an effect not only on their handwriting but the content of what they want to write as well. Children can’t think through their ideas or grammar and spelling when so much pressure is being put on them about their grip, which doesn’t really matter that much.

If you want it corrected, you buy all the different types of grip and try them out. You be the one to nag at your child. Don’t complain about teachers who are just doing their job.

My son has Autism and struggles to hold a pencil in the pinch grip and would rather hold it like a fist at the top of the pencil.
we bought him a pencil with the indents already on pen to help with the pinch grip and that helps him quite a lot.

do you have a link please?

@Thesnailonthewhale i can’t get the link to work so have attached a photo, hope it works! X

PP who talked about gross coming before fine is right. Have a look at the 2 links I sent in my earlier post.

Although she can do some things with fine motor control, it sounds like she's lacking stability in her gross motor/core (which is very common) and this lack of stability will make it very difficult for her to manage the precise control that she needs for pencil control.

The fact she gets annoyed and grumpy when you keep reminding her might mean that she either finds it uncomfortable to use a tripod grasp or it doesn't give her enough control because she doesn't have the stability lower down.

Really you need OT to get to the bottom of it but the NHS doesn't cover OT for school handwriting issues unfortunately. If private is not an option then CatinaCatnipComa's suggestions are helpful - lots of this and see if it helps.

DS is in year 3. We did all the hand/grip activities from nursery onwards when we noticed that he had an odd pencil grip but school told us we were crazy and nothing was wrong.

He’s had ongoing issues with organising his thoughts around writing and ‘blank paper’ syndrome and he’s just been diagnosed with dyspraxia/DCD after private OT assessment.

He can do all the fine motor things - buttons, Lego, laces but can’t run well, jump, hop etc…coupled with the pencil issue and the sequencing of thoughts around writing his own sentences.

Would never have thought this was dyspraxia/DCD but there you go.

I’m glad I didn’t listen to the school and pursued the private assessment. We’d have been waiting years for one on the NHS.

She is very clumsy and uncoordinated generally.

school can do motor skills programme and THEN they can refer to OT

Then it might be worth seeing if school can refer as Hotcrossed said or looking into dyspraxia?

This has helped my DC massively!!

I think she might have dyspraxia, have for a long time.