When you go down the opposite path to the majority of our society, it can be hard to trust that your child will learn what they need for a successful life. My daughter learning to write is our first personal reminder to trust my child on her learning journey.
My first worry was not about academic performance as this is not a high aim for my daughter’s life, but it was about how my daughter physically uses the pen to write. At nearly 5-years old she was still using the fisted grasp. By her age, even academics were suggesting she should be moving towards an adult grasp (see page 53 in this article).
How Schools Approach Writing
This section is not necessarily how all schools approach fisted grasps in reception class-aged kids. However, my gut instincts say that this example is not the exception to the rule. See page 7 of this UK Government document of recommendations, starting all primary schools should…ensure that children are taught the correct pencil grip… It is copied below for quick access.
Whilst at the park in the UK, we met a family from our local forest school. The mother is local a reception class teacher. She knew that we are homeschooling our kids. I asked what sort of goals they have for the end of the child’s first school year. She listed off what they do, and on the writing front she said:
“By the end of reception class, we expect the children to be writing with the correct pen grasp, and neatly… If they aren’t, we help them out by removing the pencil from them when we see improper use and make them pinch it to continue… If you don’t, then they’ll have all sorts of problems writing when they’re older…“
How A Home Educated Child May Write
Two of my children naturally progressed into different pencil grasps at the age of 2. My oldest daughter, at nearly 5, was still using her whole fist to grasp a pencil. I left her to do this for several reasons:
- She loves drawing and using pens / pencils. Why make it stressful with forcing her to hold her pen differently?
- She is left-handed so I had no idea if this made a difference to when they change grip on the pencil. As a right-handed parent, I didn’t want to interfere with any left-handed needs.
- Like most things, I thought she will find her own path to the most comfortable grip for her. And what if the fisted grasp is what suits her hands better?
- The comments some people made that holding the pen wrong whilst learning to write letters would cause bad habits for life… just didn’t add up? It’s ok for children to draw circles and lines without a correct grasp? Yet wrong grasp and letters equals trouble? Is a circle not also the letter ‘O’, and a line an ‘I’? My gut said she’s just drawing pictures and copying things she’s interested in, who cares how she’s playing around with the pen and paper now. When she’s ready to write stories, maybe we can think about grasps then…
Grasps and Writing Outcome
I am so glad we left our daughter to write with joy and in her own way. She was spotted using the four fingers ‘quadruped grasp’ as shown in the above photo, as well as occasionally the 3 fingered ‘tripod grasp’, just before her fifth birthday. The fact that she was occasionally using these different finger grasps was a sign she was following her own leisurely journey to writing with a pincer grasp.
Gentle Parent 