The Easiest Way to Teach Your Child to Hold a Pencil
Holding a pencil correctly is an important life skill, but it is also not particularly intuitive, especially since the size of a young child’s hand seems out of proportion to the length of a new pencil. They are tempted to grasp the thing with their fist or try to get hold of it by holding it too high – neither of these methods we want to encourage. But one kindergarten teacher has a trick you can do at home to get their fingers into the correct position.
There are many different grips you can buy online to put on your pencil to help them learn how to hold it properly, but instead, you can use what you probably already have at home: a clothespin. As @ .itsamaddoglife shows us on TikTok :
It looked like a clever way to give these little pens extra leverage and control over the pencil, as well as give the three resting fingers some place to dangle. I tried it myself, however, and found that pinching the clothespin as it shows doesn’t quite get their fingers in the correct position if you want them to really feel like holding a pencil.
Instead, I prefer this little variation fromResources 4 YouTube Tutorials :
In this version, the clothespin gives the child something to cling to, but he still practices holding the pencil itself (and we see him using this method to write his name).
Either way, once they build muscle memory in their pencil-holding hands, you can remove the clothespin and let them write on their own.