A pencil grip can be a quick and easy fix for an awkward grasp. There is such a huge variety of them out there, but how do you know what ones to choose. Here’s some quick tips on how to choose a pencil grasp for your child. The Simpler the Better: If your child needs […]
Letter Sorting Activity – Small/Tall/Fall
This great activity came from one of our OT’s! This activity involves sorting letters into 3 categories: Small, Tall and Fall. It can help kids not only work on specific letter recognition but also: visual discrimination between different kinds of letters which can help to improve their handwriting legibility spatial awareness as they learn and […]
OT Month Handouts
In honor of OT month we decided to create a few handouts for the school districts we work with. I made them into photo format so that I could share them here but please let me know if you would like the PDF format and I will send them to you. Happy OT Month! […]
Development of Writing Utensil Grip
Another article by one of our OT’s. As children are getting back to school, we often hear questions about children’s writing utensil grasps. Teachers may point out the way a child holds a crayon or pencil, or parents may take notice when one child doesn’t follow the same pattern as older siblings. But why is […]
The Eight Key Components to Good Handwriting
This article was written for our newsletter and discusses the key components to successful handwriting and what to do if you suspect difficulties related to these components. Many handwriting problems can be avoided or solved by teaching good strategies. Also, consider consulting with an occupational therapist or other professional trained in handwriting assessment and remediation. […]
Tactile Letters
One of our recent projects at work was to make tactile letters. Our therapists used various tactile surfaces such as duct tape, felt, cardboard, bumpy paper, glitter paper, denim and any other paper/material we could find that would provide different tactile input. This allows the child to trace letters and get different tactile […]
Taking the visual out of handwriting practice
I love having students in our practice. Not only do they challenge us as therapists to be deliberate and think about why we do what we do, but they also bring an influx of ideas in and add to our overall toolbox. Our most recent OT student shared this idea with us that she did […]
Color by Number
Who remembers color by number? I loved them. Such a simple idea and yet it can help kids work on several things (while creating artwork for the refrigerator)! The coloring itself will work on hand strength and endurance especially when they have to color the larger areas. It will also allow you to work on […]
Handwriting Stencils
I saw a blog post the other day on using handwriting stencils for pre-writing and I immediately sent it to our OT’s because I thought it was a great idea. One of our OT’s used it the next day and expanded on the idea. She had several kids that she was working on writing […]