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Handwriting help
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My 11yo son has bad pencil grip and presses down too hard on the paper. this causes him to say his hand hurts after writing. His writing is legible, but not very neat. I’m interested in any info/method or instructions on how to re-train the pencil grip. I’ve tried the HWT method of using short pencils. He is very resistant to changing his pencil grip, but I am willing to be tough and steadfast if I can find a good method.
Sonya mentioned about the vertical writing, ie, chalkboard or white board. I wonder practicing writing on a verticle surface like that would help with re-training pencil grip????
Hmmmm, . . . I don’t know that “vertical writing” would help with re-training the grip, because you usually hold the chalk or marker differently to write on the vertical board than you would hold a pencil to write on a flat surface. It might give those fine-motor muscles some relief and a break, because you pretty much use your whole hand to move the chalk or marker, rather than holding the hand still and moving just the fingers for “flat” writing.
Anybody have any experience with this? Do we have any physical therapists handy?
Sonya, now I understand about the whiteboard, about giving their hand muscles a “rest” by using the verticle white board.
To give more info on my 11yo son’s poor pencil grip… he grips with his index finger, middle finger and ring finger on the front of the pencil, pinkie resting on the paper, thumb on the side of the pencil as it should be, top portion of pencil resting on his big knuckle of the hand as it should be. if that makes sense. Would he need OT or PT for this? or just for us to work at home on re-training pencil grip?????
Rachel mentioned using HWT “stamp and see screen”. I have the stamp and see screen, just never thought of using it with an 11yo. I can certainly try it. Maybe just let him use it to draw circles, lines, etc?
lgeurink gave a wordpress link. I’ll check that out for ideas. Thanks to everyone.
Hi. I’ve just been reading a post on wordpress on handwriting and pencil grip. It has several ideas to try! Go here:
http://practicalpages.wordpress.com/2010/03/18/getting-to-grips-with-handwriting/
Thanks everyone.
Donna Jo
Donna Jo, just from your description I think I can see why that grip is hurting his hand. Trying to keep that ring finger up there with the other two fingers would put a lot of stress on that weak finger’s muscles. I just tried holding a pencil like you described as I read your description, to help me “see” what you wrote, and I wiggled it a bit to simulate writing. The whole side of my ring finger hurt because of that innate connection between the ring finger and the pinky. It’s so hard to separate those two fingers. I wonder if a starting point might be to help him move his ring finger down to be with his pinky. Just an initial thought.
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