One of the most important elements of fine motor skills is the ability to write neatly and legibly. Yet it is just as important that children are comfortable when writing. A way to achieve these 3 things in unison is to ensure children develop a good pencil grip.
This is the second article in this series focusing on fine motor skills and it is all about pencil grip and teaching lowercase letters and sounds. If you missed it, the first article, explaining the need to teach fine motor skills and how to strengthen young hands, can be read here.
While most children will naturally develop a pencil grip that is comfortable for them the image below shows, what occupational therapists deem to be, the most ergonomic and user-friendly grip.
Children learning to write may exhibit a variety of weird and wonderful grips which are all capable of producing legible writing. At an early, beginning to write, stage this can be fine but by Year 2 an incorrect grip can have detrimental effects on a child’s writing spe