Page 68 - EY Teacher's Handbook 2024-2025

Pencil Grasp Development

Moving through the different stages of pencil grasp development is an important part of early
childhood development.

Please, do NOT force toddlers 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!

Each stage of holding a pencil or crayon is dependent on how "steady" the shoulder and arm
muscles are.

Ashildren develop physically, and take part in lots of fun gross motor activities such as crawling,
As c
climbing and pushing, the shoulder and arm muscles will get stronger and steadier, and this should

help the child's pencil grasp to mature as well.

There
There are principles of development called "big to small" and "proximal to distal" (Myers [1]).
Basically this means that children develop the larger muscles of the trunk and arms before the

smaller muscles of the hands, and that the proximal muscles closer to the body centre (e.g. shoulder
muscles, upper arm muscles) develop before the distal muscles which are further away (e.g. hand

musles)

When a child is forced to use a "proper" pencil grasp before the shoulder and arm muscles are
When
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.

So, don't be in a hurry to make children draw or color "properly".

Rather encourage overall development of their Gross Motor Skills and Fine Motor Skills.