this is a project if "children are gripping the pencil correctly", further studies are going on. This is useful for children as they are getting carpal tunnel syndrome, muscular pain and etc, at a very small age.

1. ARE CHILDREN
GRIPPING THE
PENCIL
CORRECTLY?
“the beauty and nobility, the august
mission and destiny, of human
handwriting.”
George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion

2. BACKGROUNG RESEARCH
• A lot of schools insist on a child developing a
good handwriting, but don’t actually teach how to
hold the pencil. Children often develop their own
ways of gripping the pencil depending on what’s
comfortable for them. When a child starts
scribbling in paper with a different grip when s/he
is small, and thinks its correct and follows the
grip, the child starts developing it.
• However there are bad consequences of an
inappropriate grip: Children not holding the
pencil properly will suffer muscular pain.

3. GOOD OR BAD?
Good:
•Quadropod - For the quadropod grip, four fingers work together
to hold the writing tool. The pencil rests on the middle finger, in
order to provide support.
•Tripod - For the tripod grip, the thumb, index, and middle finger
hold the pen/pencil.
(the shown grips are not to see if they clutch the pencil or if they
hold it close to the nib, its to show how it is held.)

4. GOOD OR BAD? (2)
Bad :
• C.l.a.w - For the c.l.a.w grip, the thumb, index and middle finger
hold the pencil. Your ring finger rests for the support.
• Hooked - Hooked is basically when you hold the pencil the way
you do when you are knitting.
• Unusual 1 - Unusual 1 is when you hold the pencil in quadrapod
way but you hold it close to the nib or tight or put a finger
different.
• Unusual 2 - Unusual 2 is when your thumb, index, press your
middle finger and all of them also hold the pencil. Ring finger
rests.
• Unusual 3 - Unusual 3 is when you hold the pencil in tripod way
but you hold it close to the nib or tight or put a finger different.

5. Good or bad? (3)
claw
hooked
Unusual
3
Unusual 1 Unusual 2

6. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Do children (from class 3 – 5) have unhealthy
ways of holding a pencil ?
HYPOTHESIS
I believe 20% of the children from class 3-
5 will have unhealthy ways of holding a
pencil.

7. PROCEDURE/EXPERIMENT
• I went to three schools.
• I surveyed 75 children in classes 3-5 in these schools. Asked the child to copy out a
sentence I had written.
• I videotaped the grip.
• I reviewed the videos of their grips and identified them.
• I classified the grips in the following manner
– Quadropod
– Tripod
– Claw
– hooked
– Unusual 1
– Unusual 2
– Unusual 3
• The analysis was done using the following variables:
– Boy/girl - do more children of a particular gender hold the pencil incorrectly?
– Class – do children of a certain class hold the pencil incorrectly?

8. DATA ANALYSIS
Good Grips
• Tripod- 7
• Quadropod- 2
Bad Grips:
• Claw- 1
• Hooked- 2
• Unusual 1- 39
• Unusual 2 - 5
• Unusual 3 - 19
Total - 75
data analysis (both boy & girls and all classes)
Tripod Quadropod Claw Hooked Unusual 1 Unusual 2 Unusual 3
9%
3% 1%
3%
52%
7%
25%

9. ANALYSIS BY GENDER - GIRLS
7%
0%
2%
2%
56%
7%
26%
girls
Tripod
Quadropod
Claw
Hooked
Unusual 1
Unusual 2
Unusual 3

10. ANALYSIS BY GENDER - BOYS
Tripod
14%
Quadropod
9%
Claw
0%
Hooked
5%
Unusual 1
43%
Unusual 2
5%
Unusual 3
24%
boys

11. ANALYSIS FOR CLASS 3
Tripod
7%
Quadropod
5%
Claw
0% Hooked
2%
Unusual 1
62%
Unusual 2
5%
Unusual 3
19%
class 3

12. ANALYSIS FOR CLASS 4
Tripod
13%
Quadropod
0%
Claw
0%
Hooked
4%
Unusual 1
44%
Unusual 3
30%
Unusual 2
9%
class 4

13. ANALYSIS FOR CLASS 5
Tripod
10%
Quadropod
0%
Claw
10%
Hooked
0%
Unusual 1
30%
Unusual 2
10%
Unusual 3
40%
class 5

14. DISCUSSION
• Total are 75.
• I believe 88% of kids were holding the pencil
in the wrong way.
• I believe 12% of kids were holding correctly.
• more boys seem to be holding correctly than
girls (23% boys vs. 7% girls).
• Some were holding correctly but too tightly.
• Some were holding too close.

15. CONCLUSION OF THE STUDY
My hypothesis is wrong, I thought that 20% will be wrong but 88%
are wrong. the children mostly hold it correctly, but
unfortunately they hold it too close to the nib or they clutch their
fingers with the pencil.
•There are variety of reasons why children hold their pencils in
patterns other than the dynamic tripod. One common reason is
participating in a lot of writing before their hands are
developmentally ready for this activity. This is becoming more
and more common as parents try to start preparing children to
school with writing activities at an earlier stage.
•It is important to try to modify the pencil grasp as early as
possible, since many students seem to have developed bad habits
even before entering kindergarten. Adaptive pencil grips may be
helpful in teaching students to modify their grasp and are used to
facilitate an optimal pencil grasp. There are many different types
of grips available. For a pencil grip to be effective, the student
needs to be involved in choosing the grip and to understand the
importance of using it.

16. CONCLUSION (2)
• I believe 80% are holding it correctly but too
tight or too close. This may be because their
hand muscles haven't been strengthened yet.
Also only 10% are holding completely
wrongly (hooked, claw or unusual 2).

17. FURTHER STUDIES
•Is there any link between your grip and the speed of
writing?
•Why do children hold the pencil tightly?
•Do children not clutch the pencil if the pencil is
small?
•Does children’ grip change if the pencil is small?

18. USES OF STUDY
• My study will be useful for children importantly,
because I'm doing this for the hand grips of them, it
would benefit them when they have long essays and
compositions to write. Our hand pains, when we write
in unusual grips mostly.
• My study will also be helpful for teachers and
parents, because then they can start developing good
grips for their child/student when they are small and
when they are not used to a unusual grip.
• My study would bring awareness among people who
have unusual grips to not teach others’ their grips’.

19. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank:
God
All the middle, elementary and Montessori
teachers and staff.
Ms. Aneesa
Children who volunteered for my project
Athichudy learning centre, Adyar.
Learning tree Montessori school, Adyar.
Ms Sadiya Saleh

20. BIBLIOGRAPHY
• www.hwtconnections.com
• http://www.otplan.com/articles/pencil-grasp-patterns.aspx
• http://www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/pencil-grasp.html
• http://www.ot-mom-learning-activities.com/pencil-grasp-development.html
• http://www.kidspot.com.au/schoolzone/Writing-Kids-handwriting-mastering-the-pencil-
grip+4291+307+article.htm
• http://voices.yahoo.com/tips-living-carpal-tunnel-syndrome-2607162.html
• http://www.pdrhealth.com/diseases/carpal-tunnel-syndrome/diagnosis
• http://www.icanteachmychild.com/2012/06/correct-pencil-grip/
• http://www.childcarequarterly.com/spring07_story3.html/