Teaching Pencil Control With Activities and Exercises

Have you noticed that your little ones struggle with holding their pencil properly? They may have a weird grip on it and hold it too tight, or they may not hold it tightly enough and constantly drop it. If your children struggle with their pencils you are are going to love this pencil control workbook to help them out.

It is very common for young children to struggle with having a proper pencil grip. This is because their fine motor skills aren’t fully developed. Having a good pencil grip is very important to strengthening hand muscles and helping with fine motor control.

Pencil Grip Problems

If your child’s pencil grasp is not correct, they will put an unnecessary strain on their hand muscles. You may notice that they are grasping the pencil too hard causing their knuckles and fingertips to turn red or white. This is harmful to muscle development and why the correct pencil grip is necessary.

Other signs of pencil grip problems:

• Your children complain that they are too tired to write, or they don’t want to do it, that it is too hard.
• They take too long to complete simple writing tasks.
• Hands and fingers hurt or are too sore to finish the task.
• The pencil lead keeps breaking because they are pushing down too hard.
• Holes and tears in papers is a sign that they are putting too much pressure on the pencil.
• Poor posture such as laying their shoulders or head on the desk as they are writing.
• Messy or ineligible handwriting could mean they are focusing too hard on holding the pencil than the letter formation.

Stages of Pencil Grasp Development

Not every child develops their fine motor skills or hand-eye coordination at the same time. There are many different stages of pencil grasp development that children will go through as they are learning.

Pencil grasp development usually follows three stages.

Primitive Pencil Grasps

The primitive pencil grasp stage is the beginning pencil grasp when the child’s whole arm moves the pencil.

Palmar Grasp – This is also called the fist grasp, when a child makes a complete fist around their pencil to hold it in place. This is normally seen in small children under the age of two.

Pronated Wrist Grasp – Two to three year olds will typically use this grasp when they hold the pencil or crayon sideways across their hand with the tip held on the thumb side.

Transitional Pencil Grasps

The transitional grasp stage is when the child’s forearm and wrist move the pencil.

Quadrupod Grasp -This is considered a four finger grasp where four fingers are used to grasp the pencil in the hand. These are usually the thumb, pointer finger, middle finger and ring finger.

Static Tripod Grasp – Children ages three to four years old may hold their pencil with their thumb, pointer finger, and rest the pencil on their middle finger as they are holding it. 

Mature Pencil Grasps

The mature pencil grasp stage is when the child holds and moves the pencil with the fingers and hand.

Dynamic Tripod Grasp – This grasp is seen in ages four to seven. Pencil movements are made by the fingers moving while the thumb and pointer finger hold the pencil.

Lateral Tripod Grasp – The thumb is pressed in against the pencil to hold it near the pointer finger. Sometimes the thumb can wrap over, but the thumb does not make the pencil move.

Functional Pencil Grasps

Many children have what is called a functional grasp. This is when the writer can use a pencil efficiently and also inefficiently. They may write correctly, but hold the pencil in a very odd way.

They may use a thumb wrap grasp, finger wrap grasp or pincer grasp. This isn’t the correct way to write, but they are able to write neatly and form letters properly this way. When the grasp is an improper one, but the writing is correct, this is called a functional pencil grasp.

Pencil Grip Activities

You may be wondering how to improve an improper pencil grasp. There are many fine motor activities and pencil grip activities that are a great way for young children to improve their pencil grasp.

Our printable Pencil Control Workbook contains many printable exercises that will help your children with proper letter formation and are also a great pre writing skill. Hands-on exercises are also a great way to improve pencil control. Here are some ideas with items that can be found around the house, or picked up at a craft store.

Play Dough

Play dough is the traditional form of fine motor play that will keep kids busy for hours. Have your child pinch off a piece of playdough and form it and roll it into a long tube. They can then stretch the playdough out to form shapes, letters and numbers and strengthen their hands at the same time.

You can use playdough mats to turn this simple activity into an educational one. There are many fun activities and games that can be played with playdough to keep your little ones busy for hours.

Pipe Cleaner Twisting

Pipe cleaners are a great way to build up finger strength. Give your kids some pipe cleaners and let them practice twisting them into different shapes. Pencils are a wonderful tool to use to shape pipe cleaners.

Hold the end of a pipe cleaner to a pencil tightly with your thumb and slowly wrap the pipe cleaner around the pencil. Gently slide it off of the pencil and you have a great shape that you can decorate and create little animals with. 

Lacing Cards

Lacing cards help children to perfect their pincer grip which is a necessary skill to have in order to learn proper pencil grasp. Lacing cards are a great independent activity that you can give your kids to work on and it’s a lot of fun too.

Elastic Band Trick

Another great pencil control activity uses the elastic band trick. You can use an elastic band to help with pencil grip by attaching two elastic bands together. Place your child’s wrist through one band and place the pencil through the other band.

Make sure your child pinches the nib of the pencil and then begin writing. This will help them to be aware of the space they are writing in and encourages a better pencil grip.

Pencil Control Worksheets

Tracing and pre writing worksheets are a fun way to help your children to build up their pencil control skills. They are a useful tool for children that may have poor handwriting, and pencil grip. Pencil control worksheets develop muscle memory and encourage extra practice with holding a pencil and concentrating on what they are tracing.

Pencil Control Workbook

Our pencil control workbook pdf has 50 pages of pencil control worksheets that will get your kids excited to practice with. They can use colored pencils, markers, or crayons to trace all the fun shapes and lines on the pages. 

What’s included:

50 pages of tracing practice to practice tracing lines and copying different shapes and using different pencil movements. With these worksheets your children will work on tracing:

• straight lines
• vertical lines
• dotted lines
• diagonal lines
• cross hatch design
• squiggly lines
• curly lines
• shape tracing
• pencil control practice
• spiral designs
• trace the lines from start to stop, and more!

Download Your Pencil Control Workbook

Mastering pencil control at an early age can set children up for success in their future handwriting. This Pencil Control Workbook contains 49 pages of tracing practice to help little hands work on controlling their pencil and grip.

Click here to get your Pencil Control Workbook Today!