Little hands often struggle to hold a pencil, especially when their muscles need some building. Fortunately there are many fun ways to work on building hand strength and developing a firmer grasp.
Learn
Weak Grasp or Insufficient Hand Strength
Having a weak or inefficient grasp is common for young writers. It often occurs when children lack the hand and finger strength to properly use a writing utensil. Two areas of focus could be:
- Fix the grasp (the physical hand grasp on the writing utensil).
- It is crucial to develop an efficient grasp, and it is much easier to correct when children are younger. These helpful visuals show the difference between efficient and inefficient grasps.
- Build hand strength.
- A child’s overall hand strength is a strong contributing factor in their ability to produce age-appropriate fine motor skills.
Do
Fix the Grasp
First, here is the nomenclature. “Grip” often refers to the physical tool (plastic or silicone most likely) that one slides on to a writing instrument. “Grasp” often refers to finger positioning. Pencil grips are a great resource for encouraging a good grasp. Understanding these definitions is helpful in knowing where to focus your area of attention.
The exact type of pencil grip will depend on the problem area for your child (best determined by consulting an occupational therapist). Grips to help with overall grasp include: pencil aids, claw, crossover grip and stetro grip.
Build Hand Strength
Incorporate hand strengthening activities, like the ones below, into your child’s daily routines to maximize your child’s opportunity to develop hand strength.
- Engage in weight-bearing activities – Actively build strength in the shoulders, wrists and arches of hands. Some fun, routine examples: playing on climbing structures, playing wheelbarrow races, doing yoga, coloring while lying on the tummy, etc.
- Play with therapy putty – Get your child’s fingers moving with some resistance. For example, challenge your child to pull putty apart; hide small things inside and have your child find them and pull them out; roll the putty into twisted shapes and cut it.
- Draw on vertical surfaces – Tracing at a window, painting at an easel, doing a wall chalk mural – all standing up – are helpful ways for helping your child to build shoulder strength and stability in their core muscles.
- Help with household chores – Many daily activities focus on building upper body and hand strength. Encourage little hands to help with stirring food in a bowl, using a handheld mixer, cleaning with spray bottles, wiping down windows, washing the car, etc.
- Get creative with art – Using a hole puncher or stamps for art projects; mold, roll and cut playdough with extruders and craft kits.
Games You Could Play
Games like these are a fun way for organically building hand strength:
- Develop hand, finger and hand arch strength – Play (squeeze!) spray bottles of water at one another.
- Build hand, upper body, and core muscle strength – Play rope-pull games; pull each other in boxes or baskets; play tug-of-war; pull wagon loads and race to see who can cross the yard the fastest.
- Practice pincer grasp – Draw and cut playdough with golf tees; play games with tongs and clothespins.
- Create races where your child has to pick up items with tongs and run them back to a bucket; create a race to see who can make the longest clothespin snake in one minute.
Other Common Handwriting Issues
For some children, learning to write is hard and may not come easily. Weak grasp or insufficient hand strength are one type of challenge. Target your child’s issues or be versed in all of the following common issues: