Pencil grip and writing style

[EWeatherwax]

My dd 6 yr1 has a very bad writing grip and school seam to be making no effort to correct it - should I do ''correct'' it myself this holiday ie 10/15 mins a day - or am I likely to make it worse/ it doesn't matter anyway?

Also they are learning a very weird font ie with little flicks - I would like to teach her cursive as it is so much more fluid and the deputy has admitted to me that they teach this as they were persuaded by a foundation teacher who has now left but none of the junior teacher like it and they all feel that the general writing in the school has deteriorated since they have started teaching it -

I have no problem spending the time with her and her teacher seams generally ok with home tuition and not that fixed on the writing style

It is very difficult to correct a pencil grip. Trying different pencils may help though.
this kind of thing - you may have to try lots of different types of pencil to find one that suits her.

Ohh thanks that looks fab - have tried some of the big gripper think without much sucess.

I agree about the cursive as well.

Thanks :) I think it looks so much better and I understand fluidity helps with spelling - is there a book you would recommend?

folk on here recommend 'Write from the Start' a lot.

tx

Good question re pencil grip. I doubt very much if my son is being corrected at school, though I try to do so at home. he is 6 and is doing quite well in all areas.

I am not sure, I must admit, why the pencil grip is important and have tried to find out. My sister has been teaching young kids for about 24 years and says that it is to stop the kids pressing too hard and to encourage fluidity of writing. A Yr 2 teacher at DS's school says it is to stip their hands getting very tired when they do a lot of writing.

Does anyone have any idea WHY the grip is important (apologies for mini-hijack). And despite not knowing the reasoning, yes, I still correct DS!

I work in a Y1 class and we do try to correct pencil grip. We have a selection of devices oto use with pencils, and we remind children about how to hold their pencil. We don't o it all the time but e make sure the child isaware, they kow where the grippers are and how to use them, and we remind them if we are working with them or near them - but not too much to avoid too much negativitiy.

My 8y DD has a dodgy pencil grip but it is improving. Her school have also worked with us. Her's appeared to develop well after learning to write - around the time they moved onto joined up wortiting for some reason. DD didn't get on with the grippers but perseverance is winning gradually.

here's one idea about how to correct pencil grip.

I teach Y3/4 and see the results of children with poor pencil grip. IME they generally find a legible style more difficult or if it is legible it is slower and they can't write the quanity required at KS2. I have also seem some unusual letter formation from those with poor pencil grip which of course makes the transition to a joined up style difficult. If they can't read their own writing then it is harder to help them with other aspects of writing such as spelling and sentence construction as reading the sentence and individual words is harder.
I know how hard it is as my own daughter has the most awful handwriting partly as a result of poor pencil grip(the shame!!) but of course won't take correction from "mum". However....... she has just gone into year 5 and her sainted teacher has moved her onto joined up writing (always made to print before) and her writing is suddenly legible and has also helped with her pencil grip!! Hurrah!!

Thanks, Indigobell. Great link.

The main reason to correct grip is to prevent hand pain and fatigue later on when the child needs to write bigger quantities. It does also help develop cursive writing. An ideal grip uses 3 fingers but there are other functional grasps, the main thing is to have small movements occuring in the fingers holding the pencil. For children with bad grips that dont respond to the regular chunky grips the writing claw is great but i think only available from america, they will post to uk though. If a child grips too tightly work on hand strength too as often this is the reason for poor grip.

One of my children held a pen correctly from a very young age, but as the years have progressed, has regressed into a very poor grip. I have had no success in reverting this, and have asked each teacher every year to help retrain my ds without success.

It really worries me because she hates writing, and always writes the minimum amount she can get away with.

I have looked back at nursery and reception reports and they all reported correct handgrip, but now Y4 and she holds it really wierdly.

What do you think about those large pencils which have cross-section like this:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuleaux_triangle

I used to buy them for my son in WHSmith and Staples.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuleaux_triangle

Kayah. Success with larger or triangular shaped pencils depends on why the child is holding the pencil awkwardly. For most children using something like you suggest is sufficient and regular use in the early days alongside being taught and repeatedly reminded how to hold it works. However, if the child has issues with hand, arm, shoulder, and/or trunk stability or strength they do usually need a programme of strengthening plus a more supportive moulded grip. The purpose of the moulded grips is to provide support and to help break the habits formed by repeated use of a poor grasp. Unfortunately, i haven't found many teachers who work hard enough in the early days on establishing a functional grasp and habits are really hard to break.

I didn't realise that those kids are left behind.
Would such difficulty go by some name?

As a Senco I think establishing whether the child has motor difficulties and if so putting in place a programme is vitally important. I am not a fan of the type of moulded grips that slip onto pencils in general as it is perfectly possible to adopt strange grips even with these in place far better to reinforce correct grip until it becomes automatic.

kayah - if your child has very bad handwriting, it could well be caused by either dyspraxia, dysgraphia or visual perception problems.

The difficulties jollyma describes are part of dyspraxia - and would be a good thing to rule out if handwriting or pencil grip are very poor.

You don't need a diagnosis of dyspraxia - but you do need to know if difficulties are caused by poor core strength / shoulder strength / hand strength - because they are all so easy to fix with daily strengthening exercises.

And of course all of this is easier to fix the earlier it is caught....

I completely agree with mrz. It is far better to establish good habits without moulded grips if possible. They do have value with some children, particularly the older ones who have bad habits established and dont have enough adult prompting to correct it without one. In my work as an OT I have about a dozen options to choose from and will rarely stick with my first suggestion. The biggest factor that determines success is how motivated the child is.

Hi All,

You can buy the claw pencil grip in the UK. I stock them in my shop:
www.letmelearn.co.uk/claw-pencil-grip-medium-p-632.html in 3 different sizes.

I use the claw grip with children that I home tutor and in school. It's very effective, helping children concentrate more on what they are writing rather than having to concentrate on holding the pencil correctly.

(Another hijack...). One thing I always wondered: is there something odd about my hands, or is it very difficult to get a biro to make an adequate mark if you are genuinely holding the pen properly? I always found the pen was sloping back too far in my hand if I held it "properly" and the biro would scrape across the page, hardly writing anything... I therefore developed a grip where my thumb, technically, wrapped far too far around the pen in order to make the pen more upright in my hand (or alternatively, for a while, my middle finger had the pen resting on it at the first joint, which resulted in a big swelling on said joint, hence resorting to the thumb wrap...). Now, whilst this is technically a very poor grip and can result in joint strain and a flapping thumb (!), I have very neat, very fast handwriting and am therefore a bit loathe to correct this position in my children.

ps we are all very hypermobile (which should make the grip a worse choice than any other, given that we shouldn't put undue strain on our joints, although I've never noticed any problems as a result and have been writing regularly for years, now!!!!!). Maybe hypermobile hands just can't get proper pen stability using the standard, conventional grip? In which case, why on earth is it the grip of first resort, when there must be a huge proportion of people that find it pretty silly, given the proportion of the population that has some degree of hypermobility?

pps I have been told that for people who really can't get any stability using some form of the tripod grip where the pen rests between thumb and index finger, it is also acceptable to place the pen between the index and middle fingers, enabling a tripod grip with an upright pen even for those with low muscle tone and/or hypermobility. Has anyone ever tried this one out???? I reckon, if someone had tried this out on me when I was 6, I might not have a flapping writing thumb, now!!!!!

Pencil grips driving me nuts in my house :) My YR 2 cannot write with those Berol red pens if she holds it correctly!!!! I never could either.

I've heard that using a mini pencil is helpful, the sort that people liberate from Ikea. Not very scientific but maybe worth a try.