Past The Tripod Grip: What Get's In the Way Part I

So, as teachers we can preach and teach the tripod grip until our faces are blue and the student holds the pencil the way we want, but it may not be doing the students any good. There are some students who need to grip their pencils in other ways until they build the appropriate skills for the tripod grip. We have to look at why they hold the pencil the way they do instead of just telling the students to change their grip.

When you think about pencil grip upper arm strength isn't the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, upper arm strength and muscle tone can affect a student's ability to hold and manipulate a writing utensil. For these students an extra finger on the pencil is useful for control. In the meantime the child should also be working on building some muscle tone at the play ground. Simple weight exercises can help.

Wiggle your fingers. Move one finger. Now the other. We take for granted our ability to isolate fingers and perform small movements. Not all children can do this. For students who struggle with isolating fine finger movements the tripod grip can be quite difficult. To start these students might hold their pencil closer to the palm and use their wrist to manipulate during writing. For these students hand over hand modeling and practicing fine motor skills is necessary to build proper finger movement skills for the tripod grip.


These are just two barriers to the proper pencil grip. Be on the look out for these in your class and read about more barriers soon (footnote 1).