The Ins and Outs of Pencil Grips

The Simpler the Better: If your child needs a pencil grip, they are most likely having difficulty planning how to hold the pencil in the first place. Keep it simple so the grip doesn’t become as frustrating as the pencil initially was to hold. It will also make it easier to transfer from pencil to pencil if needed and recall how to hold it correctly each time.

Look at the concerns: The type of pencil grasp that your child will use is going to depend on what the areas of concern are when they are holding the pencil. Here are some common concerns, along with which direction to possibly take:

• Low tone (fine motor weakness): This can be observed one of 2 different ways. One such way is when your child is holding the pencil too loosely and often resorts to an awkward grasp to compensate. The other way is they will look like they are actually applying too much force when writing and are using it as an over-compensation for the weakness. Thicker or jumbo grips are usually easier for these kiddos to hold onto and can cut back on some of the force when writing concerns. Weighted pencils or grips can also help in some cases, so the child doesn’t feel the need to push down the pencil so hard when writing.

• Motor Planning: This is when your child just can’t seem to get the motor patterns correct for holding the pencil. These are the kids that the more simple the grip the better. Single grips or crossover grips would be most beneficial for these kids.

• Kinesthetic feedback: These kids usually grip the pencil with a tight fisted grasp or barrel grasp. They’re looking for input when writing in order to fill a sensory need, as well as give them some proprioceptive feedback to assist with guiding the pencil. Wider or jumbo pencil grips or textured ones may be most beneficial for these kids.

Make it Fun: There’s different colors, shapes and even grips with glitter. You want to get the right type of grip, but you want your child to be excited about using it as well. Let them choose colors or other features of the pencil grip as long as it doesn’t impede overall function of what you wanted it to do originally.

It’s not forever: Pencil grips are just to encourage the use of an appropriate grasp for the time being and not to use as a permanent fix. It should assist your child in making the grasp more of a habit and you should be able to eventually end up with no use of no grasp at all. Just another helpful trick along the way.