How to help your child with pencil skills
When children start to learn to scribble and draw they try lots of different grasps and often change hands. Let them experiment; the most important thing at this stage is that they have fun.
The documents and websites in this area will help you support your child’s development whilst giving you some creative and enjoyable activity ideas.
Information on hypermobility can be found on the physiotherapy hypermobility page.
Hand strength
Hand and finger strength is important because it is required for many everyday activities such as doing up buttons and zips, climbing on playground equipment or cutting up food at mealtimes. It also helps to develop the endurance to complete activities such as writing and using scissors. Muscle strength of the hands and fingers increases as children grow and participate in these activities. It is best if you encourage your child to do every day activities by herself and only assist if necessary.
Organisations, links and apps
The following websites and apps provide useful activities.
Should I change my child's pencil grip?
5 questions to ask before you try. Watch the YouTube video from Adam the OT.
Apps that help to ensure children are ready for school and life success. From fine motor skills to math concepts to correct letter formation to spatial reasoning, the apps are instructionally sound, easy to use, and fun to play. The apps are centred on increasing finger dexterity and fine motor skills in children and young people. It uses a fun and interactive game, with different levels of difficulty, which gets progressively harder as the games. Each app contains a few different games/activities that work on different areas of hand development.
Android Apps for Learners with Dyslexia, Reading and Writing Difficulties.
A list of useful websites containing information and links for apps that can be downloaded to reinforce learning, providing a fun and interactive way. Some apps are free to download, whilst others have a charge. All prices are noted next to the links to the apps. Some are downloadable onto I Phones, android devices or a mixture of both.
Lots of fun activities to support your child’s fine motor development.
OTPlan helps you find children’s occupational therapy activity ideas to help support your child’s development. You can search by skill or material. Each activity details the purpose, materials needed, process, and how-to images.
Therapy Street for Kids has a range of activities that support fine motor skill development.