[Mom2Abaigeal]

How do you teach this? DD will be four next month, she really wants to write and draw BUT she holds all pencils, crayons, markers etc by the very end. She has no control over where the pencil goes or how dark/thick the line is, she get so frustrated by it she refuses to try to draw or write anything. I figured it was best to just wait it out but it has now been about 9 months of her not drawing, writing or painting (except with her fingers) things she used to love doing.
Am I missing something or should I just keep waiting?
Erin

 

[joandsarah77]

That does sound a strange way to hold a pencil. My dd is nearly 4 3/4 and still uses the fist grip. She is very resistant to any 'help' on my part in doing a more correct hold. I don't know why as she has quite good fine motor skills I think. She can thread small beads. She actualy draws quite well with this hold too. So not that I would normaly recomend the fist grip, but the end of the pencil hold sounds even more dificult. So maybe you could encourage the fist grip about 3/4 down the pencil instead. If given something very thick like sidewalk chalk my dd does use a better grip so you could try that as well.

 

[momnloveit]

This is kind of fun. If she's resistant to instruction you could just start "showing yourself" so she'll notice. Grab the pencil just above the point between your thumb and index finger so the point is pointed at your hand. Take the eraser end of the pencil and flip it up toward you so the pencil is now resting on your hand. THen move your middle finger under for support. HTH. Sarah

 

[PumpkinSeeds]

My son is just five and used to fist his pencil until just recently. He was very resistant to help but he also would get very frustrated by his lack of control of the pencil.

What finally worked for us was getting some worksheets. I got the ones where the letters are formed in dots and you have to trace over them. Then I gave him a very small thin pencil. He has been trying out several ways of holding the pencil and it's looking good so far. (he likes the worksheets, who knew?)

 

[Mom2Abaigeal]

Thanks everyone, I even wish she would try to use a fist grip. I am going to try these ideas this week and see if she is interested.

PumkinSeeds worksheets are part of the problem

she wants to learn to write but because she can't/won't hold the pencil properly she gets so upset when she tries to follow the lines

I will try a small pencil and see if that helps...

 

[NoHiddenFees]

There is a useful suggestion in the HWT materials: give your child small bits of chalk, short broken crayons, etc. There will be no alternative but to grip near the writing end.

 

[Ravin]

I think the short utensil idea sounds like a good one. With my DD I just showed her how to hold it correctly when she first wanted to scribble at like 18mo., and now she usually uses a proper writing grip, unless she has a really fat piece of chalk, then sometimes she'll fist it.