Daughter's Handwriting

I have two out of three kids who did this and by 1st grade there was a marked improvement. Talk to the K teacher when school starts and s/he will watch the development. I wouldn't worry about it just yet because kids develop at such different speeds at this age. Just keep an eye on it; they might suggest OT, and they might have other suggestions.

Have you tried using a larger tool than a pencil? Maybe those fat crayons or markers. My son just started Kinder and the teacher actually sent home a paper on the first day that it is NOT unusual for children so young to have trouble gripping writing tools.

I am 34 and I still can't hold my pencil write. I was offered fancy pens once I did and all kinds of things. I have a very neat, readable handwriting. Never get comments about it.....and the whole pen holding shouldn't be such an issue. All my other motor skills developed fine. Luckily my teachers never made it an issue as they always were able to read my assignments and home work.

Like you write about my daughter, my joints pop up a bit when I write, I make a mes of my writing if I force myself to hold a pencil the correct way.

My 4 year old loves mazes, always has. I bought him a book of mazes at the book store. He was doing the mazes all the time and one thing I noticed after he got through half the book was that he started holding his pencil correctly. It seemed that he figured out that being able to see the twits and turns was easier when he held the pencil correctly. That and doing dot-to-dots helped. Basically getting him to practice holding a pencil doing something he loved was the best way to go for me.

Also I agree. Seeing an OT may be in order if you're really concerned that may be part of why this is happening.

As she grows her motor skills will continue to improve. Just keep working at it and be patient. =-)

Good luck!

I'm sure everyone else's advice is good, but I never could hold my pencil right. All of elementary school, teachers tried to get me to hold my pencil correctly and then gave me failing marks in penmanship. When I finally moved on to middle school, where no one noticed or cared, I went back to holding the pencil my way, and my handwriting improved 100%. My notes in college and graduate school were well-organized and readable - more than many of my peers could boast! If holding the pencil her way is hurting your daughter, uncomfortable, or makes it so that she cannot write, you may want to talk to a specialist. But don't force her to conform to your ideas if she's doing well enough on her own. Good luck.

I think she's doing just fine. Small motor development takes time and practice and you are doing everything right. In Montessori, they have kids her age trace simple shapes (about 4 inches across - squares, circles, triangles, etc) and eventually they have them draw the shapes without tracing them. They all look pretty rough at first, but they get better with practice. Coloring with crayons and pencils also help with holding a pencil and it doesn't matter if they stay within the lines or not. They had my son keep a daily journal and they'd have him print simple letters and draw pictures in it at first. The difference between the beginning of the year and the end was remarkable. Try not to pressure her, but let her have fun with it. She will get better.

Teaching a method of writing is important. Handwriting needs to be taught and so does grip. Often illegible handwriting leads to set back in academic acheivement. When i starte dto investigate i found that this issue needsto be address and sooner the better.

I founded Write to Shine to help children develop those hand muscles and work on mastering Handwriting.

The Write to Shine®program is here to provide Handwriting Tutoring individualized to the child's need based on the highly acclaimed Handwriting Without Tears® program to teach writing readiness, printing, or cursive.

Handwriting workshops and education is available for schools, parents, and community groups in the form of workshops, in-services, or presentations.

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Handwriting without tears. My son is 8 and just learned how to hold his pencil correctly. We use handwriting without tears and and occupational therapist for fine motor skills.

I have small hands (which may be the issue) and I still write this way.

Other than a big callous on my right ring finger and getting my fingers rapped with a ruler in grade-school (I'm THAT old:), it never caused me any grief.

I paint this way too. I have sold many of my paintings, so I don't think it's been a big hindrance there either.

I understand one can write more neatly if one holds the pencil correctly and it's less stress on the hand, so if she CAN do it "right", then great. Otherwise, my (biased) opinion is that it's not that big a deal.

Is it just her handwriting? How is her coloring? Is that "messy", too?
If so, she may have visual sensory issues. (3d, etc. )
Handwriting without tears is a great resource to use!
Also, try getting your daughter to work with playdough to form her letters and words.
Fingertaps are good exercises to build the muscles in her writing hand.Does she favor one hand over another?
Also try handwritingworksheets.com...they have tracing shhets that are awesome with many differnt types of tracing and you can make your own sheets. All for free!

Are you training her as a righty? Maybe she is really a lefty or vice versa?

Didn't read all the comments but here's my take. As far as I know, pencil grasp (formally known as a dynamic tripod grasp) is considered important for efficiency, it allows free, easy and quick movement as you form letters across the page. Although, this may become obsolete with the increased use of computers in classrooms. In the meantime, if you break a few crayons in half or thirds, and have her practice writing with these, she will almost be forced to use a tripod grasp. Also, writing on a vertical surface (e.g. easel or taping paper to the wall) encourages this grasp. You may also want to strengthen her hand muscles using putty, playdough or any activities that involve squeezing with fingers or hands.

i feel she is a bit young, i taught preschool and we had to teach them to write thier names, but really I had alot of other teachers come to me and comment that physically they just weren't developed enough to do it right and i agree it probably would have been better to wait.

playdough, sand etc strengthen those muscles, I just learned a new little trick of using a jumbo push pin to punch out (perfereate) pretraced shapes. that also provides alot of muscle work.

My son did not start holding his pencils, pens, crayons, etc correctly until he was in 1st grade. His pre-k teacher told me that I really needed to get stuff to help him because he would have so many problems. Kindergarten teacher said not to worry about it, it was doing fine. Now, I just want to get him to take his time and write neatly. He rushes to finish and may times you cannot read his writing.

Like Mommymommymommy, I hold my pencil very "incorrectly" - between my middle and third finger - and always have. I understand that your concern is a lack of legible writing, but perhaps you could go back to tracing shapes and lines or connecting the dots. Something fun, less pressure. Maybe print out family photos and have her trace people's heads or major shapes. Practice tool control in general, rather than in relation to specific letters. I'm no expert, just some thoughts. Good luck!

Try the twist n write by pen again. It is shaped like a y and their index finger goes in the middle so they have use a tripod gasp. Hand writing with out tears is good if you rind the issue is more complicated. An OT consultation would help.

M.

Hi JC,
I think VM has the right idea about sand, only I used salt. My son started screaming that he didn't want to go when we got closer to his preschool. He was 4 1/2. He was able to tell me that he couldn't copy letters that the teacher put in front of him. When he got home I had him copy letters by tracing them in the salt I closed up in a medium sized Tupperware type of container to be pulled out whenever he wanted to trace letters.I put a piece of black construction paper under the salt so he could see what he traced. In his case, that was all it took to give him the confidence to do it in class with a pencil. He is a lefty and still doesn't have the best handwriting at age 20, but it got him past that bump in the road to be a good student and he is very successful at our university!

is a lefty

2 things to "look up"

- Handwriting Without Tears http://www.hwtears.com/
- Dysgraphia

i hold my pen odd, always have, my daughter does as well, just work with her, and maybe get bwith her teacher to have a diiferent perspective when she starts school

You may not believe this since you're coming from an education program, but when my kids got to kindergarten they were not taught how to hold a pencil correctly. It did not matter to the teacher, so long as they were writing. I was shocked (as I too am certified to teach), but I guess teachers have worse things to worry about. My younger daughter still holds her pencil funny, but her handwriting is fine now that she is older.

Is it that she is not holding the pencil "right" or she cannot hold one and write at all? I have been told by many people ALL the time how I hold my pen "weird" and different yet I have very neat writing and never really have had a problem with it...when I was younger (all the way up until 4th grade I believe) teachers tried to "fix" the way I held a pencil and tried to get me to write the "right" way and it never worked...my mom always ended up telling them that I wrote fine the way I held it and to just let it be...so has your daughter tried writing using a pencil however she feels comfortable holding it?

Do not freak out by this.. She is still young and they will let her use a fat crayon in the beginning if necessary..

Sounds like her fine motor skills are great.. She will get the hang of it.

My son was fisting the pencil prior to K and we took him to an OT that specialized in handwriting. The center was called Scribble to Script. During therapy they first started with a picture of a hand and had him colored the thumb and first two fingers in green and the ring finger and pinky in red. Green were go fingers and red were stop fingers. They had him old a small cotton ball with his stop fingers and practice with tongs with his go fingers. They encouraged us to use tongs whenever possible, like while eating so he could get used to the finger grasp and the stop and go fingers being taught. There is a program that you can purchase, workbooks, called Handwriting without tears that he worked from. They learned the letters not in order but in rather in the order of straight letters, I, L, K, H, F, E, V, N, M, etc. Telling him big line and little line. They then introduced the curved letters starting with C then O and Q. Again, using big curve and little curve for letters like B, P, D, R. It was a really great program and he excelled very quickly. His handwriting was one of the best in the class after Handwriting without Tears. Best of luck! Oh, and they also had us use golf pencils, because they were smaller and you did not have enough room to grasp the pencil with a fist.

Hi,
Don't be embarrassed. Just because you're getting a degree in Elem. Ed doesn't mean you're always gonna have all the answers!
As to the question, I would leave it alone for now. If your daughter is showing progress in other areas, let her Kinder teacher work w/ her on it. After all, that's what Kinder is for. You just maybe too close to help right now. I don't know if you'll get an opportunity to meet w/ her teacher before school starts if not, schedule an appt. as soon as possible and discuss the issue.
Everything will work out. Just give you and your daughter some space from it. There are so many excited things about the first day of school to think about!
Good luck.

Read "The Hurried Child" by Dr. David Elkind.

If you are pushing her too hard on a skill when she may not be ready, you could have her "burned-out" on the whole process before she even gets to experience first day of school. If something "usually ends in tears" that may be a sign of you pushing too hard.

You might consider backing off from practicing writing right now, and email her teacher at the beginning of year, let her/him know your concerns, and just observe for awhile.

I have a good story about pushing too hard. My neighbor's daughter was a phenome at pitching soft-ball. So good, that she traveled to Italy in 5th or 6th grade to play for USA team. I remember the day that she and my daughter were playing jump rope in our driveway. Down the block we heard her dad whistle. She rolled her eyes and said, "Gotta go practice." Well, guess what happened when this excellent pitcher got to high school. She refused to even try out for the high school team. Our Keller High School soft-ball team won the Texas State Championship the year that she was a junior or senior there. I always thought it was a sad story that she missed out on that life experience, because she had been "burned-out" way too soon . . .

I truly don't think it matters HOW a child holds their pencil as long as they are comfortable writing with it however they hold it. I've seen kids hold their pencils in some strange ways before and it doesn't seem to bother them.

Also, maybe she's left-handed or something. At any rate, just tell her to experiment with different ways of holding the pencil and see if she can find something that's comfortable for her. Don't force her into a mold that she doesn't fit in.