Pencil Grasp Development

Stages of Pencil Grasp Development

• Fisted Grasp
• Palmar Grasp
• Five Finger Pencil Grasp
• Tripod Pencil Grasp
• Is there more than one way to hold a pencil?
  

When your toddler first grabs a thick crayon and puts it to paper (hopefully not to your walls!), this is the grasp you could be seeing.

It is a “fisted grasp”, and your toddler will be using movement from the shoulder to get the crayon to move across the paper.

As your toddler gains more control over arm and hand muscles, you will see this “palmar grasp” being used.

Here, the pencil lies across the palm of the hand and your child’s elbow is held out to the side a bit.

The shoulder muscles are steadier, and your child is using the arm muscles to move the crayon around, as well as the shoulder muscles. This photo shows a toddler using a palmar pencil grasp.

This is sometimes, misleadingly, called an “immature” 5-finger pencil grasp – it is immature because it is not the 3-finger grasp that is used in school, but it is a perfectly mature grasp for a 4-year old!

As you can see, there are 5 fingers holding the pencil.

With this 5-finger pencil grasp, the wrist is usually held off the table and wrist movements are used for coloring.

The crayon is often held very tightly initially, but as the hand muscles develop, you should see a few finger movements emerging.

This left-handed toddler has developed a 5 point pencil grasp that is appropriate for her age.

By age 5-6, or even a bit later with some children, they should be comfortable using a tripod pencil grip, where the thumb, middle and index fingers are grasping the pencil or crayon.

Although the tripod pencil grip has traditionally been considered to be the best way to hold a pencil because it allows for the most finger movements, there are other ways of holding the pencil that also allow for some good finger movements.

Please read my page on different ways to hold a pencil grasp to view photos and descriptions of other pencil grasps that may work for your child, including the D'Nealian Pencil Grasp.

The D'Nealian pencil grasp is helpful for kids who struggle with weak hands, low muscle tone, and/or joint pain.

Please, do NOT force your toddler to hold the pencil the way a school child does, with 3 fingers on the pencil – you may do more harm than good. It is very hard to “unlearn” a poor pencil grip later in life!

When a child is forced to use a “proper” pencil grasp before the shoulder and arm muscles are ready to support it, you may find fine motor problems emerging, such as holding the pencil in “weird” ways, messy work and even avoidance of drawing and coloring tasks.

Do you have questions about your child's pencil grip, or about what constitutes a poor pencil grip?

This printable resource aims to help by answering common questions that teachers and parents have about how a child should hold a pencil.

Many people think that the dynamic tripod grip is the only functional way to hold the pencil, but in reality, there are some variations on the tripod grip that can also be functional – I show these, as well as photos of dysfunctional grips and feedback on each.

View my Pencil Grip Download now!

Thank you for visiting this page on pencil grasp development! I hope you found it helpful!

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In response to popular request, I have made a free printable download of this Pencil Grasp Development page that can be used as a printed handout.

For access to this information and a free printable in Spanish, please visit my Spanish/Español page.

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