Why are handwriting grips now so varied in kids?

[queenceleste]

I was helping at a school do where I saw a number of kids sign their names in quick succession and the majority held their pens in very varied ways, some almost clenched in a fist.

When I was at school we had a classic pen hold with thumb and index finger holding the pen against the first knuckle of the the middle finger.

My dd has a slightly odd variation on that but it still looks traditional. But these kids were holding their pens in such extreme ways and they looked so awkward and unsuited to writing.

Did schools stop teaching handwriting holds at some point? It’s the pen in a fist which looks so crazy to me with my lens from the past!

Left hander here, and the London nun teaching me to write in 1961/2 left me to wrestle with the various exercises rather than attempt to make me right-handed as was the usual practice in those days.
But that was because the bloody woman declared that left-handedness was the Devil’s work, and she wouldn’t touch that.
This was a good thing, in practice, as she just carried on with writing tuition as though I was on the angelic team, letting me find my own way with the hold.

(Oh and interestingly, at least to me, is that if I say so myself, I never developed that characteristic swivelling of the exercise book or the contortion on the grip you usually see with left handers, as they attempt to ‘think’ their hand out of the way of the page they are writing across. I address the sheet head on like a right hander, and for some reason it works, my hand never obscuring my writing.
My brother is a case in point: same school as me, but taught by a much nicer nun a couple of years later, with extensive assistance given to him to adapt to L to R script as a left hander; his hand curls round itself so it’s almost writing upside down, on a sheet swivelled round almost to the ‘three o’clock’ position.)

I am hypermobile but hold a pencil more or less the “correct” way because this is how we were taught in the seventies. However I am also fairly ambidextrous/mixed handed and had not made my mind up about which hand to use by the time I started school. The thinking in those days for children like me was still to force, sorry, encourage the right hand. The result was predictably disastrous. I could read and spell anything by the end of the reception class and found maths easy, too. The fly in the ointment - writing, drawing and cutting out. I was around two years behind with writing compared with reading, spelling and maths and remember finding it physically very difficult until I was a teenager and taught myself to write neatly. Had a wait and see approach for my handedness been used, I think I would probably have chosen my left hand as l use it for many things - all ball sports, for example and my left foot is very dominant. I am typing this on my iPad using my left hand. I believe there are tests that reception teachers can use these days to ascertain handedness more accurately than they could in 1970.

They don't teach it where I live. Nor letter formation.

When I was tutoring it was terrible. The kids got to about 10 or so, and it was do laborious to write, it really affected their ability get their in dead down

As a teacher, I was always told to ensure correct pencil grip but I knew I was on a hiding to nothing because there were always children who chose their own pen grip and nothing could dissuade them! More recently, we had training from Occupational Therapists about handwriting and interestingly they told us not to worry too much about how children held their pencils, they said that different grips worked best for different people.

Or maybe there isn't just a right or a wrong way
And doing things a bit different is grand and has no impact on output.
I have, and always will, held my pen in a claw like way. I was hit on the hand many times with a ruler to "correct" this awfulness. Yet my handwriting is lovely and I can draw far better than most people. It has always hurt my long fingers to hold them in what has arbitrary been decided as "the correct" way.
In my parents' era they were hit for using a left hand even when left handed. Not sure this is hugely different

because we know now that children are not all the same, and the ‘classic’ grip doesn’t work well for lots of people. Studies show that there is no discernible effect on legiblity or neatness when you have a tripod grip.

research shows that tripod grips are not any better than other grips, not in terms of legibility or neatness and also not in terms of preventing fatigue.

what utter bollocks. There is plenty of research in this area and it just doesn’t matter and that’s why it isn’t obsessed over anymore.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.5014/ajot.2012.004515

And don't get me started on people who hold their knife like a pen.

I did that on my first night at boarding school, age 10. A circling nun slapped the thing out of my hand.

As pps have said, handwriting is taught. We have more of an issue with early motor skills in school now for various reasons - as Bertie posted up thread, children aren't developmentally ready in lots of cases - children used to do fuzzy felt and Lego and puzzles and collect stones - swiping does not develop those refined fine motor movements that are the building blocks of early writing.

I don't really understand why you've put my name. I said a tripod grip is taught. Children have always used slight variations on this. It's essentially not possible to reach Y6 standards unless you can write a certain amount - children will only do so with a pencil grip that is comfortable for them and allows them to write neatly. For some children, this might be slightly different to a tripod grip. Obviously not gripping the pencil in their fist and I've never seen children with very odd pencil grips meet expected standard.

Anecdotally, I don't hold my pencil in the completely traditional way but have As in essay subjects at A level and a first class English degree. My handwriting is frequently complimented. I certainly don't find writing uncomfortable or slow.

Why should it be?
I started school in 1961 and though we must have been taught how to use a pencil when we started (I don't remember but I was writing well before I started anyway) no big deal was made about the so called correct way through the rest of school. Concentration was, rightly, on writing legibly. People find their own way of doing things comfortably, which is how it should be. Writing is no different.

If I use the "classic" grip my handwritten is awful. My entire school years were spent with me being told my writing was messy and I should take more care. When I left and was able to hold my pen in a way that was comfortable to me, my writing improved in leaps and bounds. I'm glad the "one size fit's all" approach to holding a pen/pencil is no longer a thing in schools, it's the quality of writing that matters not how the person holds then pen.

@queencelesteapols if I've missed it - what age were these children?

This thread is interesting reading - I've been banging my head against a brick wall for YEARS trying to improve DS's pencil grip (he's now year 6). Eventually have pretty much given up, especially having seen his very artistic best friend has a much more unusual grip which clearly isn't holding him back or fatiguing him at all. Now we're just focusing on legibility and stamina by whatever grip necessary!

DS started reception in 2020 and I reckon Covid really didn't help. All the way into year 5, his teachers were singling out pupils for extra handwriting practice to try and bring the year group up to standard.

I don’t know but I have often thought the same about adults. A mid 50s friend of mine who is a teacher has a fist-style pen grip. Her grip looks particularly unusual but I have seen others with slightly unusual ways of holding a pen.

They were all just starting year 7 this year.

Children’s hands are much weaker now than they were in the past and so less of them naturally develop a traditional pencil grip.

Activites such as playdoh, threading/ sewing, playing an instrument, monkey bars and climbing trees and the like are less common but these are the kinds of activites which strengthen hands.

Well, I know it gets blamed for way too much, but those kids would have been reception & year 1 during Covid lockdowns...

I was at school in the 60s and we were taught the tripod grip. I didn't even realise I was using a variation on it till a teacher pulled me up on it when I was around 7 or 8 yrs old. I rest the pen against my ring finger rather than the middle one, it's a good stable grip. I couldn't write as well using the standard tripod so went right back to it. Was never corrected again. I think there's definitely some leeway to be given on these things, some people write better with a different grip.

That's the dynamic quadrupod grip . Both of my boys write like that despite being taught handwriting and cursive at Infant school and both getting their pen licences early at Junior school. I don't write like that, neither does DH.

Our primary school used to have activities in reception classes to help with this sort of fine motor skills. Is this standard - my two are well past this age.

Ooh interesting thank you! Have now read a little more about it, says it may be slower for writing than the tripod grip. I wasn't slow, that's for sure, having hand-written my way through 3 years of university lectures that required a lot of speed! Plus I managed to have nice handwriting. Years of using a computer weakened my hands but over the past few years I've been handwriting again and have slowly gotten my fluidity back.