Article for parents

This article is about pencil grip - nevertheless I would like you to try this with your children by using a crayon - only when they have mastered crayon grip, try it out by using the pencil; as the pencil is much thinner and more difficult to hold properly - Miss Ben :)

To teach the correct way to hold a pencil, you can have the child pretend his/her dominant (writing) hand is an alligator.  Open and close the alligator’s mouth – and show that the alligator is hungry and wants to eat the pencil!

Place the pencil on the bottom jaw of the alligator,and close the alligator’s mouth on the pencil.
  

Now that the alligator is holding the pencil, watch what he does with the pencil!  

As the alligator eats the pencil, he doesn’t like the taste of the pencil, so he puckers his lips.  (Show your children what it means to pucker your lips!)

He puckers his lips and curls his jaws in the shape of an ‘o’ – and clenches the pencil in his teeth.

If your child continues to struggle, there are some neat tools out there that really help children to grip a pencil correctly.  Click the picture below to see the tool we recommend for teaching someone how to hold a pencil correctly.   We do not recommend the small grips that slip onto a pencil – in my experience, they still confuse the child where and how to hold the pencil.  These sort of pencil grips may help your child feel more comfortable holding a pencil (ergonomically correcting an already correct grip).