lizbusby Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 So I have a very bright but very stubborn 4yo who will not accept any correction on how he holds his pencil. Absolutely refuses. This wouldn't be a big deal if he was just coloring and such, but he is practicing cursive at his Montessori preschool. Any advice for helping kids accept correction on this? He won't even let me put on one of those triangle grip holders and pretty much bites my head off if I try to teach him the "pinch and flip" trick from HWT . . . I'm also afraid of being too insistent, as I did with my oldest at age three, who then refused to even color for 3 years. When did your kids start holding their pencil correctly? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CardinalAlt Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Just as food for thought, when I saw this article, I decided to give up. My daughter uses a dynamic quadrupod grip, which is not standard, but called efficient here. And years of gently asking her to switch didn't work and created too much stress around the whole process. http://ot.eku.edu/sites/ot.eku.edu/files/files/Writing%20Grasps.pdf Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizbusby Posted February 9, 2015 Author Share Posted February 9, 2015 I wouldn't mind one of those non-standard but effective grips. The problem is that he holds the pencil underneath his hand, which makes it nearly impossible to write unless the pencil is completely sharp and his lines are super light. It really is a problem, not just a "incorrect" thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 1. Go through the house, replace all pencils with golf pencils and the crayons with either short, fat triangle crayons or crayon rocks.These writing tools will force him to use the correct grip. You can't hold a golf pencil in your fist. Don't say anything about it, just do it. 2. Go to Amazon or wherever, get some of those games that require tweezers - Operation, Bed Bugs, that sort of thing - and take some time out of your week to play these games. Don't say anything about it or connect it to writing, just do it. 3. Pick up some chopsticks, teach your kids how to eat popcorn or jelly beans with the chopsticks, which by the way is really fun. When he's built up those muscles, and he's practiced the tripod grip in a safe and fun way, it'll be easier to switch to writing properly all the time. I can google and find some more activities that build the pre-writing skill of "holding your pencil correctly". My handwriting is so bad that even when the girls were little I was really obsessed with this subject. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slackermom Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 I have a very bright, very stubborn left-handed 10 year old who never did accept any correction on how to hold a pencil. I had to just look away after a few years of offering suggestions, including offering a wide variety of grip holders. At age 7 she found a mechanical pencil style that she likes, which makes her hold a bit less uncomfortable. At least she doesn't have to worry about pencil sharpness now. She uses the hardest pencil leads to avoid smearing. She will probably never have lovely handwriting, unless it becomes a real priority for her. Thank goodness for keyboards.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kathy G Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 I have one with dysgraphia- not saying that is your child's issue, but for us it involved pencil/pen grip problems. Here is what we use. http://www.amazon.com/Pencil-Grip-Crossover-Ergonomic-TPG-17706/dp/B001SN8HPI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1423495470&sr=8-3&keywords=pencils+grips or http://www.amazon.com/Write-Dudes-DDD01-10ct-Training/dp/B005FPT7JU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1423495470&sr=8-2&keywords=pencils+grips She is 9 now and it has improved. If she remembers to use the grips it works, if not, she goes back to weird grips. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MotherOfBoys Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 I found a fat pencil that corrected my 4 yr old son's grip. It is nothing fancy, just a fat pencil. For some reason it worked. It's not as big as those Disney souvenir pencils. We have those too which he loves but they tire his hand out quickly. I was given this idea from a friend. Her son attends a private school that requires the fat pencils till second grade. http://slimpikinsitis.blogspot.com/2010/11/pencils-ticonderoga-style.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 My DD used the fatter ticonderoga pencils until this year-she's finally, at age 10, tending to choose thinner ones by choice. I think it just made it easier for her to control. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizbusby Posted February 10, 2015 Author Share Posted February 10, 2015 1. Go through the house, replace all pencils with golf pencils and the crayons with either short, fat triangle crayons or crayon rocks.These writing tools will force him to use the correct grip. You can't hold a golf pencil in your fist. Don't say anything about it, just do it. 2. Go to Amazon or wherever, get some of those games that require tweezers - Operation, Bed Bugs, that sort of thing - and take some time out of your week to play these games. Don't say anything about it or connect it to writing, just do it. 3. Pick up some chopsticks, teach your kids how to eat popcorn or jelly beans with the chopsticks, which by the way is really fun. When he's built up those muscles, and he's practiced the tripod grip in a safe and fun way, it'll be easier to switch to writing properly all the time. I can google and find some more activities that build the pre-writing skill of "holding your pencil correctly". My handwriting is so bad that even when the girls were little I was really obsessed with this subject. We have a bunch of those little golf pencils from HWT, but removing the rest of the writing implements in the house sounds like a great sneaky idea. :D And we have some training chopsticks I'll have to pull out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegs Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I've been able to compromise with my bright but stubborn 5yo by requiring an almost-functional* grasp only for his actual handwriting work. I've explained that it feels uncomfortable because there are tiny little muscles in his hands which need exercise to get stronger, and that he can help them by making them do a little bit of careful work every day. He's taken it surprisingly well! Maybe worth a try with your DS? *He has a genetic condition which makes him very hypermobile, so good enough is good enough, here. I'm just thrilled that he's giving it a good go. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 We have a bunch of those little golf pencils from HWT, but removing the rest of the writing implements in the house sounds like a great sneaky idea. :D And we have some training chopsticks I'll have to pull out. LOL, yeah, sometimes discretion is the better part of valor :) If these don't work, I can come up with some other ideas. I'll tell you, what I did when the kids were little is I quite simply searched up "occupational therapy pencil" and "prewriting preschool" and read what other people did. The girls didn't need any form of OT, not even a little, but I figured that if it's good enough for kids who do, it'll probably work on kids who don't, and it helped me fight my own little handwriting demons. (I really do have poor handwriting, and I put 50% of the blame on poor instruction, so I wanted to avoid that.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwik Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 Will he accept correction from his teacher? Some things come better from others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizbusby Posted February 10, 2015 Author Share Posted February 10, 2015 Will he accept correction from his teacher? Some things come better from others. Nope. This was one of the things we talked about at Parent Teacher Conferences. He is just super resistant to being told what to do, which works mostly since he's at a Montessori school, where he can usually decide what to do without instruction, but in this case (and probably in the future since we're hoping to move him to a public school Kindergarten next year) is a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbutton Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 In addition to the pincer grasp suggestions, you might try exercises for overall hand strength. We worked on pincer grasp only to find that my son has trouble with other muscles in his hands. Moving things around in his hands and working his whole palm with theraputty as well as working on grip strength (playing games that have him holding a pool noodle, for instance) have been helping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted February 17, 2015 Share Posted February 17, 2015 My only advice is to do deal with this now. It gets much more difficult to correct the pencil hold of a thirteen year old! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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