Before being able to hold and control a writing tool, students must be able to coordinate movement and have control over the small muscles of the hand. Small muscle coordination activities should be a part of handwriting instruction. For struggling students, the following activities may be helpful:

Using manipulatives :

• Jigsaw puzzles

• Legos®

• Tinker Toys®

• Snap beads

Molding with:

• Clay

• Sand

• Play-dough

• Silly Putty®

• Papier-mâche

Practicing art skills:

• Coloring

• Drawing

• Sketching

• Tearing paper

• Folding paper

• Cutting paper with scissors

Once students have developed small muscle coordination, introduce a variety

of “hand tools” requiring a variety of grasps. These tools can be

incorporated into a sand or water table. Include items such as:

• Sponges

• Funnels

• Straws

• Squeeze bottles

• Sieves

• Strainers

Playing with small toys:

• Cars

• Miniature gas stations

• Transformers

• Doll furniture

Using “daily experience activities”:

• Zipping

• Buttoning

• Sewing

• Screwing lids on small jars

• Screwing nuts and bolts

• Typing

• Tying knots and bows

• Playing a piano

• Tongs/ Tweezers

• Containers of different

shapes/sizes

• Sticks

• Shovels

• Pails

Many parents think that their child’s poor legibility of handwriting results from their pencil grip. This may be slightly true, but almost always, the legibility problem is due to other reason’s. Even a slight delay in visual or fine motor skills can affect handwriting. More often, the child really needs a systematic, multisensory handwriting course that also has reversal techniques and remedial strategies built into the program.

While grip may or may not affect handwriting, it is SO important to think about the influence of grip on stress to a joint, fatigue or pain. Also, if grip occludes vision to the tip of the pencil, it likely DOES affect handwriting for beginning learners!

Written by: Jan McCleskey, MA, OTR

The Handwriting Clinic

Preschool through Kindergarten teachers should have fine motor centers in their classroom. Use of tweezers, tongs, scissors, and coloring labs within the classroom can help develop fine motor skills needed to hold a pencil. Purchase some tweezers, or “toaster tongs” from the drugstore or kitchen supply store.

Think of all the manipulatives already available in the classroom, and have the student place their fingers in a tripod grasp on the tongs to do the center activities. This will allow the student to isolate the thumb, index and third fingers for manipulation, and allow the 4th and 5th fingers to provide stability.

Without intervention, the child’s grasp that he or she starts Kindergarten with, is likely to be a lifelong grasp without intervention. Fine motor skills and grip develop through the Kindergarten year, and with intervention, most children can change their grip.  The best part about this kit, is that it comes with reproducible handouts for parents so they can work together with you, on how to best work with their student on pencil grip.

Written by: Jan McCleskey, MA, OTR

The Handwriting Clinic

Does pencil grip affect handwriting skills? Some research suggest that it does affect younger children’s handwriting (Schneck and Henderson, 1990). Other research suggests that it does not often affect speed or legibility of handwriting, but many researchers caution that there is much more research that it is needed in this area. One thing that most researchers agree on, is that by 2nd grade, grasp on a pencil is kinesthetically locked in as a habit.

Amundunson states that by 2nd grade, changing a child’s grip is so stressful, that the effort should be abandoned. At various schools, they have found that in their older children’s classes, they cannot simply show students how to change their grip and expect results. They put the child through a grasp class, where they work on using isolated finger movements to color art projects. Many children move their hand in a repetitive up and down pattern, rather than use isolated finger movements to color. Some others use school fonts to practice daily.  They are very useful at this early stages.

They teach students how to hold a pencil, and then how to manipulate the pencil to do “finger and thumb push-ups” when coloring! With handwriting practice, many students CAN change their grip. It is often important to let an occupational therapist look at pencil grip. There are so many grips available on the market, and often parents, teachers or therapists will use a grip without analyzing the BEST grip to use biomechanically.

Written by: Jan McCleskey, MA, OTR

The Handwriting Clinic

Child Pencil Grip

My daughter did a science project at a local elementary school and tested 94 students in 5th grade to determine if they had a manipulative grasp on a pencil. 78 percent of the students did NOT have a manipulative grip on a pencil! In contrast, in 1990, Bergmann found that in a study of 447 adults, 80 percent used the dynamic tripod grasp! So why the change?

There is more of an emphasis on handwriting at an early age. Even 3 year olds have had exposure to crayons, markers or handwriting software through their preschool curriculum. Most adults remember their early years running and climbing in the backyard. There may have been a couple good TV shows on in the limited programming for children each day. But most older adults did not spend hours each day in front of the television. Video games were not available. Children played outside, or played with manipulative toys inside. I think of my youngest of four children. He spent his early years in a car-seat taxiing his older siblings to soccer, Tae Kwon Do and various activities. While we did take him to the park, he did not spend his childhood in the backyard. We also put him on his back as an infant due to the latest recommendations on SIDS. He was later crawling than the other children because he did not like his stomach.

Children that are blind, often have soft hands with flat arches in their hands due to limited time running and climbing. There are many preschoolers with soft, flat hands today, but who are not visually impaired. Best bet, encourage your student to run and play! During the preschool years, the best thing for fine motor skills is running, climbing, swinging, and developing those strong hand muscles! Or even get a good fonts for teachers program to improve motor skills and handwriting in general.

Written by: Jan McCleskey, MA, OTR

The Handwriting Clinic

Pencil Grip

• Grips that occlude a child’s vision with the tip of the pencil

• Primitive grips (fisted grips)

• Biomechanical stress to a joint – many funny looking grips may actually be providing stress to a joint that may result in problems in the future!

• Any time the child complains of pain or fatigue in the hand

• Hyperextension of the thumb IP joint (the joint toward the tip of the thumb) within a grasp on a pencil

• Severe hyperextension of the index finger DIP joint (the joint towards the tip of the index finger).

Some programs like fonts for teachers can help students practice motor skills, up and down movements with the pencil, and many other activities that can help students adjust to the new pencil grip.

Written by: Jan McCleskey, MA, OTR

The Handwriting Clinic