This may sound silly, but....

[parias1126]

My DD has such a tight grip on her pencil that, by the time she has completed a dictation lesson in WWE, she is complaining that her hand hurts and telling me she can't finish her schoolwork.

 

Is there a way to correct a pencil grip that is so tight it's causing a callous on her finger? I was the same way as a child and still am. I still have the horrible callous to this day! I would love to correct this for her if at all possible.

[Mom0012]

Is she just squeezing the pencil really hard or is she pushing down hard when she writes as well? My son started out pushing down really hard in K and I immediately switched him to a mechanical pencil. At first, he broke the lead a lot, but he adjusted to it pretty quickly. He's in 5th grade now and I still won't let him use anything but a mechanical pencil or he reverts to his old ways.

 

Lisa

[parias1126]

Squeezing the pencil too hard.

[Luckymama]

My son used to squeeze the pencil hard AND push down hard into the paper in K, 1st and 2nd grades. When writing in a notebook, the impressions would go through 6-8 sheets of paper! We tried different types of pencils (smooth barrel, triangular, regular hexagon) but that didn't make a difference. He couldn't use mechanical pencils----well, then they were really expensive but they weren't allowed in those grades at his school. He wouldn't sharpen the pencils so they'd have really wide tips making his writing look even worse. And his poor hand was always tired.

 

Finally in 3rd grade, he was permitted to use pen for some subjects. After writing with a ballpoint pen, he suddenly had a looser and lighter grip on the pencils.

 

So time was the only thing that worked for ds. That didn't help you much, did it? :lol:

[IsabelC]

My son has that tendency. I just remind him to write/draw lightly, which we check for by turning over the paper and if you can feel the writing on the other side like Braille he knows he was pressing too hard. If the kids get sore hands, I just have them shake the hand out for a bit. Also try a bigger, smaller or different shaped pencils, or those rubbery pencil grip things you slide onto the pencil (there are a few different theories on this, but I just go with what works for each child).

[Snickerdoodle]

For the record, the rubber pencil grips (of any shape or size) will help correct the grip, but they don't seem to help with the intensity of the grip in our experience.

 

Just so you know. :tongue_smilie:

[JudoMom]

My son used to squeeze the pencil hard AND push down hard into the paper in K, 1st and 2nd grades. When writing in a notebook, the impressions would go through 6-8 sheets of paper! We tried different types of pencils (smooth barrel, triangular, regular hexagon) but that didn't make a difference. He couldn't use mechanical pencils----well, then they were really expensive but they weren't allowed in those grades at his school. He wouldn't sharpen the pencils so they'd have really wide tips making his writing look even worse. And his poor hand was always tired.

 

Finally in 3rd grade, he was permitted to use pen for some subjects. After writing with a ballpoint pen, he suddenly had a looser and lighter grip on the pencils.

 

So time was the only thing that worked for ds. That didn't help you much, did it? :lol:

 

I let my ds6 use these FriXion pens (they're erasable). Somewhere (maybe the IEW website?) there's an article explaining that pens actually help because the contrast of the ink on the paper is so much better without pressing hard. Of course, I don't know that this would help with a death grip on the pencil.

[SweetMissMagnolia]

:) my son does that too--trying to work on holding pencil correctly--just switched to HWOT and it's helping-been using about a week and have seen some improvement in that and in basic handwriting too