Working on Building Fine Motor and Pencil Grip

Do you have children who need just a little extra support with how they grip their pencil? Maybe they need a lot of support? We have a little bit of all in our classroom. I received this awesome chart from The Pencil Grip which really helped me show my children how to properly grip their pencil. Download the chart here.

We write daily in our classroom. While I focus on handwriting all day, I focus on proper pencil grip and letter formation the most during our daily journals. These pencil grips really make a huge difference for those children who need extra support.

You can see where the journal passage from 1-20-16 had to be highlighted in order for the child to properly write in the dotted lines because he needed that much support. Once I received my pencil grips from The Pencil Grip he didn't need me to follow my highlighted writing to create his own writing. I mean WOW!

It wasn't long before he was forming his letters without the need of support.

Here's another friend in our classroom who needed a little extra support gripping his pencil. As you can see in the photo below, he wasn't gripping his pencil properly.

The pencil grip helps him grip his pencil properly. Boy does it ever make a difference in being able to read his handwriting.

Over time each child has made major progress with support from the pencil grip. Of course a pencil grip support alone does not solve everything. We make sure we work on building our fine motor skills in our classroom.

 Writing on a wall or door with an erasable crayon is great for building fine motor. Having the children hold up their paper with their opposite writing hand helps them build those skills as well.

Tearing paper helps build fine motor skills.

 Using a cloths pin to sort Fruit Loops is a fun and tasty treat for the children to help build their fine motor.

 Most recently for Earth Day we used tongs to pick up trash with letters on each. Talk about a great way to build fine motor while practicing their letters and sounds.

Support from our pencil grips and fine motor building activities has made giant improvements in all of my kiddos. :)