Pencil Grasp

Harrison has begun writing letters and wrote his name for the first time today. We have been working hard to develop his fine motor skills over the past year. I will post some of our favorite activities later. Today, I put green and yellow dot stickers on a large sheet of paper. He knows green means go and red means stop. He drew a line from one green dot (go) to a pink (we didn't have red) dot (stop). He practiced his horizontal lines and then his vertical lines. All pre-writing skills.

When he was done. He said they were lines like the letter H in his name. He wrote the letter H and then I aked him if he could write the other letters in is name. This is what he did....

Pencil grip can be very hard for young children and may take awhile to master. I taught him to make an L with his pointer and thumb, then grasp the pencil with his finger. He still will revert back to a palm grasp at times. As you can see, his grip is too far down on the crayon. But what a great milestone!

Only introduce this to your little one when you notice them moving away from grasping a writing utensil with their entire hand called a palm grasp. Stay away from forcing a young child from holding a pencil correctly or using worksheets for practicing letters if they are not ready. This can lead to frustration and improper grasp of a pencil. Given the opportunity to strengthen their small muscles through age appropriate activites, most will develop the grasp naturally. Get Ready For School shows the different stages of pencil grasp. Remember all children will develop at different paces.