At about what stage should DS be able to hold his pencil and sort of be able to have a go at writing his name?

[laa]

DS is nearly 4.5 yo. and has been at the pre-school attached to his primary school for a year - this is his 4th term there. I've started to notice that all of his peers can hold a pencil properly and write their name - or a reasonable stab at it. My DS though is really struggling with this. He seems unsure which hand to hold his pencil in, struggles with holding it properly and has little control over it. When it comes to forming letters or shapes he seems unable to do it. Now he isn't inspired by art or colouring or anything like that. He spends most ofthe day running around the house ewith pirates and animals making up fantastic adventures and stories. Also, the more we try to encourage him to do something, the more he will refuse to do it. However, I'm beginning to wonder why most other children are able to do this but he isn't. I asked school but they are quite dismissive and say he's not ready and it'll come. They also say that letter formation is hard to learn - but all of his peers can and when he does an 'a' the stalk is in one half of the page and the rounded bit is more of a long squiggle on the other half. I'm sure it will come and part of me really isn't bothered. At the same time DS has commented on how all his friends can write their name and he can't. Neither my dad or I have a dominant hand, so I wonder if that's part of the problem. When do most children master this? I don't want to sound pushy because with our DS with things like this we tend to leave well alone until he shows an interest. This approach doesn't always work though and I don't want to keep leaving it and suddenly find he's in year one without being able to write his name - and streamed accordingly. He's in a state primary with large class nos. so the top part of one year and lower part of the yr. below are mixed - so making 3 classes out of 2 yrs. I've got a triangular grip to help pencil holding. I've tried tracing letters and writing with fingers in paint etc. to make it fun - and on the beach. Any ideas or should I just leave it be??

I was sitting with DS1's Year-1 class yesterday, so all children at least 5, some age 6 already. We were doing an exercise where I asked them to write their names on a small (about 1" x 1") piece of paper. The range of ability was huge; some children could write their entire name legibly on the paper, some could barely scratch out anything, most wrote something that was just about recognisable as their first name. Only one child I know has SN (something like dyspraxia), and she couldn't even hold the pencil properly.

Thing is, after seeing the class like that, I really wouldn't worry much about a 4.5yo who doesn't want to write or can't write well. That's still really young.

Rummum, she's got the pencil at school and there are two pens at home but she rarely gets a go with those as DH and I tend to nick them - I'd definitely recommend them, £3 well spent.