Printing Problems

[genny]

DD is just about to turn 6 in a couple of months and I just can't seem to make headway with printing!!! I'm hoping someone on here will have some insight for me:D

 

This is both of our least favorite subject to do. I'm constantly reminding her to grip the pencil correctly. She gets upset because she has less control this way and she says 'it looks ugly' (she does have better control when she holds her pencil fist style). I think her fingers are just not strong enough:confused:

 

She loves to draw and spends a lot of the day coloring and doodling. I've found she has made up her own way to form letters.

 

I took last year off schooling because I was pregnant and feeling miserable. We've just started back now that newbie's here. I don't know what I should do about her printing!

 

I purchased the zaner-bloser printing book ... I believe it's K (the most basic one). She can't even trace over the grey letters:confused:

 

Any suggestions??? I'm at a complete loss as to how to help her. DH says to just not focus on printing instruction but I feel it's really important.

 

She's advanced in reading ability and I would like to eventually get her into copy work and spelling but she needs to be able to print.

 

Hoping to find the solution here:D

[beth83]

I'm no help, but I'm bumping for you. I know someone has some advice, as I am sure this is frustrating not knowing what to do!

[tabrizia]

I know our OT suggests Handwriting without Tears and that is what she also uses with DS. I think there is a tissue trick too for grip, where you take half a tissue, crinkle it up, have her hold it in the 3 back fingers and it will help make the correct grip.

 

If you have insurance/can afford it, it may not hurt to have her assessed by an OT, she may not need services, or may just need a few sessions, but they may be able to give you some suggestions to help as well.

[FairProspects]

Ok, I'm going to be a little black raincloud here, but a nearly 6 y.o. who cannot form a tripod grasp is way behind in fine motor development. How is she with opening food boxes or juice boxes? Can she cut? What is other fine motor development like? When she colors does she still use a fist grip? Is she clumsy in general, knocking things over, tripping, etc.?

 

There are things you can do to help with the grip, but after our experience with ds, IMHO an OT eval is overdue at this point. You may be able to get one through the school district screening if your insurance will not cover it. OT is a huge help for these kinds of issues.

[genny]

She still uses her fist for coloring. She stays in the lines beautifully. When she uses her tripod grip it's a train wreck. She can cut paper pretty good and opens and closes boxes fine. I truly feel this is a fine motor skill problem and that her hands are just not strong enough. Are there any exercises I can do to strengthen her hands?

 

I know dh will not have her brought in to be seen by anyone. He thinks she's perfectly fine and that kids develop at different rates etc...

 

I know she'll get it eventually but I just don't know how to help her and I feel completely incompetent:crying:

 

Maybe we haven't spent enough time a day practicing? Since it's our least favorite subject, we only spend 5 minutes max. and only sporadically. I think maybe if I get more self disciplined and practice with her everyday, things will improve.

 

We are smooth sailing with every other subject... I wish I could figure this one out!

 

If you've read this far...thanks for the listening

 

I'm keeping my :bigear: for more suggestions.

[FairProspects]

She still uses her fist for coloring. She stays in the lines beautifully. When she uses her tripod grip it's a train wreck. She can cut paper pretty good and opens and closes boxes fine. I truly feel this is a fine motor skill problem and that her hands are just not strong enough. Are there any exercises I can do to strengthen her hands?

 

I know dh will not have her brought in to be seen by anyone. He thinks she's perfectly fine and that kids develop at different rates etc...

 

I know she'll get it eventually but I just don't know how to help her and I feel completely incompetent:crying:

 

I'm sorry, but this is is beyond normal development. It's possible that she will never get the right grasp without help and writing will always be difficult and painful. Ask some of the Moms on the SN board who now have 10-12 y.o.s with dysgraphia. Some of them have major regrets that they did not get help when their kids were younger.

 

I'm trying to say this gently, but she is VERY behind in development in this particular area. This is a 3-4 yr old skill. I had a newly 5 y.o. boy who could not form a tripod grasp and the OT told me he was quite delayed at that point. At nearly 6, you are losing ground on this everyday.

 

Of course there are exercises that you can do to strengthen those fingers, but you also need to know WHY the tripod grasp is so hard for her. It could be finger muscles, it could be the shoulder (true for my friend's son), her neck or her core muscles. All of these can affect writing and would be addressed with different strengthening exercises. Only an OT has the expertise to figure out which is necessary.

 

This is not something that happened because you didn't practice enough. Kids without physical issues will develop this grip on their own (like my ds 2) or with minimal hand repositioning. If she had a physical issue with something else, you would take her to the doctor, right? This is no different. I'd love to be able to just tell you to have her lace beads, or trace in shaving cream, or rice like I recommend on preschool threads (in fact I thought when I saw the thread title that it would be about a preschooler), but at her age, you really need to consider some additional help.

 

That's my piece, and now I'll bow out, but I'd just like to add that I'm so glad we did the OT early with ds. He will always be a slow writer and have dysgraphia, but his letter stroke formation is beautiful and I know what I'm dealing with, so we can remove the frustration factor and accommodate him. The outcomes when caught early are so different from my friends who are trying to play catch up with a 5th or 6th grader who needed OT and didn't get it and whose academic work is really affected by their handwriting problems. Best of luck in whatever you decide! :)

Edited July 26, 2012 by FairProspects
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[Clear Creek]

I do not teach handwriting until my children are six...*but* when my youngest was about to turn five I noticed that his grip on crayons was not correct and he did not grasp a pencil correctly when he drew or pretended to write with it, and if I corrected his grip his hand tired quickly. I ordered a variety of products from Write Out of the Box (an assortment of tweezers and tongs and lots of objects like pom poms, plastic bugs, a hole puncher, etc.) and told him that they were his special hand exercise games that would make him strong. I can't remember where the instructions were, but for all of the tweezer/tong activities the child is to tuck the ring and pinky finger into "bed" into his/her palm, holding a pom pom there as the "pillow." The child only holds the tweezers with the thumb and first two fingers, which strengthens the tripod grip.

 

I am not saying that you should skip an evaluation, but if you are looking for products to help develop hand strength and correct grip, these are developed by an occupational therapist specifically for these skills. There are lots of other websites selling similar things, I just found this one the easiest to navigate. :001_smile: