Pencil grip and handwriting for 6yo

[silverbirch]

Dd (6) is good at drawing and has neat hand writing for her age but she grips her pencil so tightly – with her index and middle finger above it so that she can only write for a short while before her hand starts to ache. I have shown her how to hold her pencil correctly and am encouraging her to relax her hand but she complains that she cannot write neatly like that – she is a bit of a perfectionist - and quickly reverts to the tight grip. She still writes by moving her wrist rather than just her fingers and I think the grip she uses encourages her to write by moving her wrist.

Has anyone any suggestions as to how I can help her relax her hand when writing? or would you not worry about it at this stage?

I am concerned that she is developing bad habits.

Thanks.

You can get things that slide onto the pencil to give it a triangular grip with little depressions for the fingers. I can't remember what catalogues I've seen them in, but if I do I'll post them. Probably educational ones.

I had a friend in school who modified her handwriting but developing the habit of holding her little finger out while writing. That way she made less of a fist with her fingers. The finger didn't stick out (like drinking posh tea), but more sort of trailed on the page afte her hand. I wonder whether trying to hold the pencil that way might ease your dd's grip.

What does she do if she writes on, say, an easel, with a different posture?

tpencil grips....

Similar issues here with my dd - good handwriting, no problems producing reams of work, BUT all produced with a bad tense grip (thumb all the way over the index finger instead of on the pencil) and when the grip's corrected complains that she can't write neatly that way. She does know how to do the correct grip and can do it (a bit huffily) when reminded.

I definitely worry about bad habits and am working on my usual system - quarter of a chocolate button for each day when I don't see the wrong grip. Seems to help with the huffs.

Handwriting grip set \link{http://www.brainstore.co.uk/acatalog/Writing___Spelling.html\here} (you need to scroll about half way down the page), which might help?

What about taking away from handwriting completely, and getting her to do exercises (in a fun sort of way, obviously) like drawing large loops, following curly lines etc with the correct grip. Not trying to get her to use the correct grip for anything else, just giving her the chance to become accustomed to holding the pencil correctly. After a few weeks of this, hopefully she would have developed enough control of the pencil in the correct grip that she could try forming letters. Still not making her actually write that way all of the time until she's confident that she can control the pencil well enough for her own standards.

Yes, those are what I meant earlier.

2 things I've tried with some success - put the paper over a soft surface like polystyrene - I used the linig stuff left over from a laminate floor. If you press too hard the paper rips. Other thing - draw 3 bunnies (or similar) and ask her to shade one in lightly, oe medium and one dark. This will let her see what you mean. I still sometimes get ds to shade 3 mini cubes before he starts.

Its a developmental thing. A course I attended told us about some research that has shown that the muscle development to write and draw with precision with out it being exceedingly difficult douesn't come until age 7 or 8. I haven't seen the reasearch myself - but interesting though.

ds has motor skill isues and has had problems with handwriting grip and fatigue as he tended to move his whole arm and felt awkward. His OT used \link{http://www.shoppersworld.co.uk/store/product.asp?s=19&d=48&p=70&c=26&s1=33&s2=0&s3=0\this type of grip} with him (also part of that set linked lower down) and he soon didn't need one. He is now 8 and his handwriting has come on tremendously this school year with some small group tuition and focus on groups of letters that it is unrecognisable from this time last year.

My DS has problems writing. Have tried different pens the most recent being the Stabilo but it's lost at school. School are not taking it seriously even though it is affecting his confidence. Lizs what is an OT? Just wondering if there is anything the school could do.

Try getting a pencil grip, I think you can get from whsmith or staples.

They also come in cute shapes and colours for the children.

OT = occupational therapist She did sensory integration therapy with ds for about a year before we moved. Now he has a weekly-ish lesson with a teaching assistant who works on whole hand, wrist and relaxation exercises before getting them to practice pecific letter groups. He has gone from really basic printing (like Reception aged dd can do already) to joined up, legible, even-sized cursive since September. Sitting properly helps too - feet flat on floor, table and chair at right level, perhaps an inclined surface.

Liz was that arranged by school?

The OT was attached to the school but we were abroad then. ds still misses her We are currently going through the NHS to get a similar OT asessement(via referral from gp and community paediatrician) but have been waiting since last September and should be seen by the end of the year. There are some private OT's listed \link{http://www.otip.co.uk/\here} if that is an option. In the meantime he has the handwriting sessions at school and they do lots of tactile activities like art and woodwork as part of the curriculum which help his fine motor skills.

Lizs thanks for that. I'm curious as to how bad your ds was/is. My DS is in yr 1 and he hates writing. he tells me that his hand aches and I can see is grip is not standard. The Stabilo pen seemed to help but teacher is not convinced. The teacher is not treating it as a problem as he is way ahead in other areas but as I explained to her ds thinks he is 'not very clever' as all you do in class is write and he is 'bad' at writing. Any skills he has elsewhere are not even in the head.

The teacher likes to say he hates writing cos his grasp of vocabulary is far greater than his penmanship and she was not aware that he felt pain in his hand when writing. I think this is fobbing me off although at the last parent teacher meeting she did say that she would speak to SN about getting him a laptop cos she recognised there was a problem.
Do you think I should go to GP or go through school. I think my fear is that I am making more of it than it is and DS's explanation of the pain/ache is not entirely true.

I would second the pencil grip suggested by LIZS. I'm a teacher, and it's the one we use at school (as suggested by OT and learning support service).

Sounds very similar to our ds who also found the physical effort of writing too much. He still can't doesn't/write much but it is improving as his handwriting becomes more fluent and would agree that verbally he can express much better ideas than he could hope ever to do on paper. Funny you should mention a laptop as I'm just writing to his teacher asking whether he should be included in the next Touch Typing group. ds is at a private school so it seemed simpler for us to go direct to our gp but if you have a school with access more directly into the system it may speed things up to use it.

Many thanks lizsss