My child isn’t holding a pencil properly
Colouring, drawing and writing is so important during childhood and leads to all kinds of creative, imaginative and academic development. Like learning anything new, pencil grip goes through many important stages throughout childhood. A functional pencil grasp is important for a child to write neatly and at a reasonable speed without tiring easily. A child with a dysfunctional or poor pencil grasp can have illegible handwriting, write slowly or fatigue easily – all of which impacts on their motivation to do written tasks (e.g. schoolwork, homework). This can be because they are not using their hand muscles efficiently.
Stages of pencil grasp development
To work out if your child has difficulties with pencil grasp, we need to first understand how pencil grasps develop typically.
First, we need to look at the “big to small” principles of development. This is where children develop control over the “big” parts of their body that are closer to the middle of their body (e.g. their trunk/core, shoulders and upper arms) before they can control the smaller parts of their bodies that are further away from the centre (e.g. hands and fingers). A child’s gross motor development – how strong and steady their core, shoulder and arm muscles are – impacts their ability to hold a pencil. You might need to start by working on things like crawling, climbing and pushing can help develop your child’s gross upper body strength and create solid foundations for them to build their fine motor skills like pencil grip.
The stages of pencil grasp in typically are as follows:
- Fisted grasp(also known as the palmer supinate grasp): your child places the pencil in their fist and holds it with their whole hand. They use movement from their shoulder to move the pencil. This is typical from 12 – 18 months.
- Palmar grasp(also known as the digital-pronate grasp): your child holds the pencil across the palm of their hand and their elbow is out to the side. This shows that your child is gaining more control over the muscles in their arm and hand. They are using their arm and shoulder muscles to move the pencil around. This is typical from 2 – 3 years.
- Four finger pencil grasp (also known as a quadropod grasp): your child places the pencil in their hand and uses four fingers and their thumb to hold it. This grasp is in preparation for the three-finger grasp a child will use in school. The child’s wrist is usually up off the table and the movement comes from the wrist. Grip is initially very tight, but with practice you will start to see some movement coming from the fingers. This is typical from 3.5 – 4 years.
- Static tripod pencil grasp: your child holds the pencil between the thumb, index and middle finger. Initially, the grip is tight and movement comes from the wrist. This is typical from 4 – 6 years.
- Dynamic tripod pencil grasp: As your child develops the movement in their fingers and the muscles become stronger the movement will start to come from the fingers. This is typical from 5 – 7 years
The most important thing for your child is that their pencil grip is functional… But how do we know what functional looks like? A functional pencil grip allows the movement to come from the fingers. Although the dynamic tripod pencil grasp is considered to have the most function, there are variations of this pencil grip that allow for good finger movement. Some children also switch grasps as they are building their shoulder, arm and hand strength. This is okay and as their strength builds, they should switch less. This is similar to a baby learning how to walk, sometimes they get tired and will crawl until they are ready to walk again and this will happen less and less as they build endurance until they are walking full time.
How to help develop your child’s pencil grasp
There is a temptation to encourage your child to hold their pencil with the tripod grip, however if they haven’t got the appropriate shoulder and arm strength to support this, it can result in unusual pencil grasps and they may even start to avoid drawing tasks. If their grasp is appropriate for their age, you don’t need to force them to hold the pencil differently. Instead you can:
- Encourage development of their fine and gross motor skills for their core, shoulders and arms
- Try changing the surface they learn to draw on (e.g drawing on a vertical surface such as a wall or window will encourage pronate palmer grasp and shoulder strengthening).
- Encourage development of their visual motor skills
- Try activities such as puzzles, balls games, board games
- Develop their ability to use scissors
- Try increasing arts and crafts activities such as making paper planes, gluing and cutting
Incorrect pencil grasps
There is a difference between an immature pencil grasp and incorrect/dysfunctional pencil grasp. If a child’s pencil grasp is immature, they need to move through the stages of pencil grasp listed above to build strength and endurance to increase the upper body stability, hand strength and hand dexterity needed for a mature grasp.
A dysfunctional pencil grasp can happen for many reasons. Often it is a result of compensating for a weak skill area because they really want to participate in the drawing activity. A pencil grasp might be dysfunctional if it causes:
- Discomfort or pain in the hand or arm
- Fatigue – the child doesn’t finish their work because their hand is tired
- Stops the movement of the fingers – the child then uses the arm or shoulder to do the work, causing inefficiency and fatigue
- Untidy/messy work as a result of any of the above
We need to work out why the child has an incorrect grasp to allow parents, teachers and caregivers to address the root of the problem. Some of the common causes of dysfunctional pencil grips are as follows:
- Weak finger muscles
- Reduced coordination
- Weak shoulder muscles
- Learning from their peers
If you are concerned about your child’s pencil grasp development, contact an occupational therapist to help you determine if there is a problem and to help put together a tailored plan to help your child improve their pencil grasp.
You can also learn more about speech pathology or speech therapy for kids today!