ARE CHILDREN GRIPPING THE

PENCIL CORRECTLY?

“the beauty and nobility, the august mission and destiny, of human

handwriting.” George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

BACKGROUNG RESEARCH

• A lot of schools insist on a child developing a good handwriting, but don’t actually teach how to hold the pencil. Children often develop their own ways of gripping the pencil depending on what’s comfortable for them. When a child starts scribbling in paper with a different grip when s/he is small, and thinks its correct and follows the grip, the child starts developing it.

• However there are bad consequences of an inappropriate grip: Children not holding the pencil properly will suffer muscular pain.

GOOD OR BAD? Good:•Quadropod - For the quadropod grip, four fingers work together to hold the writing tool. The pencil rests on the middle finger, in order to provide support.

•Tripod - For the tripod grip, the thumb, index, and middle finger hold the pen/pencil.

(the shown grips are not to see if they clutch the pencil or if they hold it close to the nib, its to show how it is held.)

GOOD OR BAD? (2)

Bad :• C.l.a.w - For the c.l.a.w grip, the thumb, index and middle finger

hold the pencil. Your ring finger rests for the support. • Hooked - Hooked is basically when you hold the pencil the way

you do when you are knitting.• Unusual 1 - Unusual 1 is when you hold the pencil in quadrapod

way but you hold it close to the nib or tight or put a finger different.• Unusual 2 - Unusual 2 is when your thumb, index, press your

middle finger and all of them also hold the pencil. Ring finger rests.• Unusual 3 - Unusual 3 is when you hold the pencil in tripod way

but you hold it close to the nib or tight or put a finger different.

Good or bad? (3)

clawhooked

Unusual 3

Unusual 1 Unusual 2

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Do children (from class 3 – 5) have unhealthy ways of holding a pencil ?

HYPOTHESIS

I believe 20% of the children from class 3-5 will have unhealthy ways of holding a pencil.

PROCEDURE/EXPERIMENT• I went to three schools.• I surveyed 75 children in classes 3-5 in these schools. Asked the child to copy out a

sentence I had written.• I videotaped the grip.• I reviewed the videos of their grips and identified them.• I classified the grips in the following manner

– Quadropod– Tripod– Claw– hooked– Unusual 1– Unusual 2– Unusual 3

• The analysis was done using the following variables: – Boy/girl - do more children of a particular gender hold the pencil incorrectly?– Class – do children of a certain class hold the pencil incorrectly?

 

DATA ANALYSIS

Good Grips• Tripod- 7• Quadropod- 2

Bad Grips:• Claw- 1• Hooked- 2• Unusual 1- 39• Unusual 2 - 5• Unusual 3 - 19

Total - 75

9%

3% 1%

3%

52%

7%

25%

data analysis (both boy & girls and all classes)Tripod Quadropod Claw Hooked Unusual 1 Unusual 2 Unusual 3

ANALYSIS BY GENDER - GIRLS

 7%

2%2%

56%

7%

26%

girls

TripodQuadropodClawHookedUnusual 1Unusual 2Unusual 3

ANALYSIS BY GENDER - BOYS

boys

Tripod14%

Quadropod10%

Hooked5%

Unusual 143%

Unusual 25%

Unusual 324%

boys

ANALYSIS FOR CLASS 3

Tripod7%

Quadropod5%

Hooked2%

Unusual 162%

Unusual 25%

Unusual 319%

class 3

ANALYSIS FOR CLASS 4

Tripod13%

Hooked4%

Unusual 143%

Unusual 29%

Unusual 330%

class 4

ANALYSIS FOR CLASS 5class 3

class 3Tripod10%

Claw10%

Unusual 130%

Unusual 210%

Unusual 340%

class 5

DISCUSSION

• Total are 75.• I believe 88% of kids were holding the pencil

in the wrong way.• I believe 12% of kids were holding correctly.• more boys seem to be holding correctly than

girls (23% boys vs. 7% girls).• Some were holding correctly but too tightly.• Some were holding too close.

CONCLUSION OF THE STUDY

My hypothesis is wrong, I thought that 20% will be wrong but 88% are wrong. the children mostly hold it correctly, but unfortunately they hold it too close to the nib or they clutch their fingers with the pencil.

•There are variety of reasons why children hold their pencils in patterns other than the dynamic tripod. One common reason is participating in a lot of writing before their hands are developmentally ready for this activity. This is becoming more and more common as parents try to start preparing children to school with writing activities at an earlier stage.

•It is important to try to modify the pencil grasp as early as possible, since many students seem to have developed bad habits even before entering kindergarten. Adaptive pencil grips may be helpful in teaching students to modify their grasp and are used to facilitate an optimal pencil grasp. There are many different types of grips available. For a pencil grip to be effective, the student needs to be involved in choosing the grip and to understand the importance of using it.

CONCLUSION (2)

• I believe 80% are holding it correctly but too tight or too close. This may be because their hand muscles haven't been strengthened yet. Also only 10% are holding completely wrongly (hooked, claw or unusual 2).

FURTHER STUDIES

•Is there any link between your grip and the speed of writing?•Why do children hold the pencil tightly?•Do children not clutch the pencil if the pencil is small?•Does children’ grip change if the pencil is small?

USES OF STUDY• My study will be useful for children importantly,

because I'm doing this for the hand grips of them, it would benefit them when they have long essays and compositions to write. Our hand pains, when we write in unusual grips mostly.

• My study will also be helpful for teachers and parents, because then they can start developing good grips for their child/student when they are small and when they are not used to a unusual grip.

• My study would bring awareness among people who have unusual grips to not teach others’ their grips’.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank:

GodAll the middle, elementary and Montessori

teachers and staff.

Ms. Aneesa

Children who volunteered for my project

Athichudy learning centre, Adyar.

Learning tree Montessori school, Adyar.

Ms Sadiya Saleh

BIBLIOGRAPHY• www.hwtconnections.com• http://www.otplan.com/articles/pencil-grasp-patterns.aspx• http://www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/pencil-grasp.html• http://www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/pencil-grasp-development.html• http://

www.kidspot.com.au/schoolzone/Writing-Kids-handwriting-mastering-the-pencil-grip+4291+307+article.htm

• http://voices.yahoo.com/tips-living-carpal-tunnel-syndrome-2607162.html• http://www.pdrhealth.com/diseases/carpal-tunnel-syndrome/diagnosis• http://www.icanteachmychild.com/2012/06/correct-pencil-grip/• http://www.childcarequarterly.com/spring07_story3.html/