Category Archives: handwriting




What kid isn’t right for this toy?






Child Struggling With Pencil Grasp During COVID-19? Flip Crayons Restore Skills


All of my kindergarten clients and some of my preschool clients are using them.  None of them are backtracking into a fisted grasp with pre-writing or early handwriting.  Flip crayons from Learning Without Tears (formerly Handwriting Without Tears) are one of those simple grasp development strategies that keep on giving.

Why?  Their design does all the work for me.  Well, almost all the work.

Flip crayons have the same diameter of a standard school crayon, not a toddler crayon, or those ridiculous and useless egg/fingertip crayons Egg Crayons or Fingertip Crayons: When Good Marketing Slows Down Fine Motor Skill Development  .  They are shorter, so they do not allow a fisted grasp or even a palmer pronate grasp.  The crayon demands finer grasp, not the adult.

Selling an item to a child is important. They have to want to try these out.   I “sell” them as kindergarten crayons.  Every preschooler wants access to something they think is for older kids.  Their unique appearance is almost always appealing to kids.  I have met very few rigid kids, even with ASD, that are unwilling to give them a try.  Within a month of regular use, I see huge improvements in grasp without manhandling a child, begging them to “fix your fingers”,  or any of the other methods to address grasp issues.

COVID-19 is dragging us all down.  Why work harder than you have to?  I need children’s parents to see me as a problem solver, not someone asking them to work harder.  Flip crayons are an easy answer to a challenging problem.  I have another huge box of them sitting in my office to drop off as “gift baggies” at the end of the month!


Using A Vertical Easel in Preschool? WHERE Your Child Draws on it Matters!


There are a few equipment and toy recommendations that every home-based pediatric OTR makes to a child’s parents:  Play-Doh, puzzles, tunnels, …and a vertical easel.  Found in every preschool, children from 18 months on can build their reach and proximal (upper body) control while coloring and scribbling on a vertical surface, rather than a tabletop.

But WHERE a child is directed to aim their stroke matters.  Here is why:

  • Grasp and reach have a range of efficiency.  I tell adults to imagine that they are writing on a whiteboard for a work presentation.  Your boss is watching.  Where will your writing/drawing be the most controlled?  Everyone immediately knows.  It is between your upper ribs and your forehead, within the width of your body or a few inches to either side.  Beyond that range, you have less stability and control.  Its an anatomy thing.  If you are an OTR, you know why.  If you are a parent, ask your child’s OTR for a physiology and ergonomics lesson.
  • Visual acuity (clarity of focus) is best in the center of your visual field (the view looking directly forward with your head centered).  Looking at something placed in this range is called using your “central vision”.  Your eyes see more accurately in that location, children can see an adult’s demonstration more clearly,  and therefore they can copy models and movements more accurately.  Kids with ASD like to use their peripheral (side) vision because it is cloudy, and the distortion is interesting to them.  This is not good for accomplishing a visual-motor task or maintaining social eye contact, but they find this is a way to perform sensory self-stimulation and avoid the intensity of direct eye contact with others.
  • Young children have little self-awareness of how their environment impacts them.  Until they fail.  Then they think it is probably their fault.  The self-centeredness that is completely normal in children gets turned around, and a child can feel that they are the problem.  Telling children where to place their work on an easel gives them the chance to do their best work and feel great about it.
  • Children move on when a task is too hard, or when an adult doesn’t provide enough supportive strategies.  Telling a child to try again, or telling them that their results weren’t too bad” isn’t nearly as helpful as starting them off where they have the best chance of success.
  • Using the non-dominant hand to support the body while standing is an important part of vertical easel use.  For kids with low muscle tone or hypermobility, it is very important.  Standing to the side or draping the body on the surface to write are both poor choices that OTRs see a lot in kids with these issues.  Make the easel a piece of therapy equipment and teach a child to place their non-coloring/painting hand on the side of the easel in the “yes zone”.  Look at the picture of the older boy at the beginning of this post, then at the gentleman below.  Note each person’s posture and try to embody it.  Which posture provides  more ease, more control? 



Here is a graph of where an adult should place their demonstration on a page or board for optimal vision and motor control, and where adults should encourage a child to draw.  “NO” and “YES” refer to the child’s optimal location for drawing or writing.

The exception is for height.  A very tall child will need to draw higher on the chart, and a smaller child will only reach the lowest third of the easel.  This should still allow them to use their central vision and optimal reach.  If the easel doesn’t fit the child, place paper on a wall at the correct height.





71ASiKXBSJL._AC_SL1200_.jpgOne of my colleagues with a hypermobile third-grader told me this chair has been a great chair at school for her child.  It hits a lot of my targets for a chair recommendation, so here it is:  The Giantex chair.

Why do I like it so much?

  • It is a bit adaptable and sized for kids.  No chair fits every child, but the more you can adjust a chair, the more likely you are to provide good supportive seating.  This chair is a good balance of adaptability and affordability.  My readers know I am not a fan of therapy balls as seating for homework.  Here’s why: Should Hypermobile Kids Sit On Therapy Balls For Schoolwork?
  • It isn’t institutional.  Teachers, parents, and especially kids, get turned off by chairs that look like medical equipment.  This looks like a regular chair, but when adjusted correctly, it IS medical equipment, IMPO.
  • It’s affordable.  The child I described got it paid for by her school district to use in her classroom, but this chair is within the budget of some families.  They can have one at home for homework or meals.  Most kids aren’t too eager to use a Tripp Trapp chair after 6 or 7.  It’s untraditional looks bother them.  This chair isn’t going to turn them off as easily.
  • This chair looks like it would last through some growth.  I tell every parent that they only thing I can promise you is that your child will grow.  Even the kids with genetic disorders that affect growth will grow larger eventually.  This chair should fit kids from 8-12 years of age in most cases.  The really small ones or the really tall ones?  Maybe not, but the small ones will grow into it, and the tall kids probably fit into a smaller adult chair now or in the near future.

For more helpful posts on hypermobile kids, read Joint Protection And Hypermobility: Investing in Your Child’s FutureHow To Correctly Reposition Your Child’s Legs When They “W-Sit” and When Writing Hurts: The Hypermobile Hand.


Want more information to help your child and make life easier?  My newest book has finally arrived!

The JointSmart Child:  Living and Thriving With Hypermobility  Volume Two: The School Years is now available as a read-only download on Amazon and a printable download on Your Therapy Source .  It is filled with the practical information that parents and therapists need to make kids’ lives easier, safer, and more independent.

There are extensive forms and checklists for school and home, and strategies that make immediate improvements in a child’s life.  Learn how to buy and fill a backpack that doesn’t damage a child’s joints, how blankets can create more pain and sleep problems,  and how to help a child write and keyboard with greater control.  Read more about it here: Parents and Therapists of Hypermobile School-Age Kids Finally Have a Practical Guidebook!

The Joint Smart Child.indd

Think Using Dot Markers Is Therapy for Kids in Preschool? Think Again!


S495361_2I had to look twice.  A private client showed me the picture her 4 year-old made in his school OT session (not the picture above!).  A picture decorated using a dot marker.  He can copy a vertical cross and a circle using a pencil.  I showed him how to draw a triangle in less than 4 minutes during that session.  He is very risk-averse and is probably intellectually gifted.   He has lots of sensory issues and mildly limited fine motor skills.

Why was he using a dot marker for anything?

I know his therapist isn’t very experienced, and I am sure the supplies budget isn’t huge.  But neither are good excuses for using tools that don’t raise the skill level of a child that is so hesitant to be challenged.  Those markers are great for toddlers under 2 or older children with motor skills under a 24-month level, especially kids with neurological or orthopedic issues that don’t allow them to easily grasp and control crayons.  Dot markers get children excited to make a mark on paper (an 11-month fine motor skill) and can be the first step to holding a tool to develop early pre-writing.

They aren’t good at all to develop any kind of mature pencil grasp due to their large diameter and large tip.  It would be like writing your name with a broom!

The ink tends to splatter with heavy quick contact with paper (fun to make a mess, but not therapeutic!), and doesn’t dry quickly enough.  Repeated contact bleeds colors together, and it is hard to keep within the borders of a design unless the target is very large.  I can assure you that the design above was done by an adult, an adult with some art training.

Dot markers aren’t building pre-writing skills for this child I treat.  There are so many options for activities that do build skills in kids at his ability level.  Their use can discourage a risk-averse child from working on pencil grasp.  Whatever the activity it was that they were doing, unless he was swinging on his belly on a platform swing or going down a ramp on a scooter (I don’t think he was doing anything nearly that intense) while using a dot marker, there were other, better choices to make.

Read Using A Vertical Easel in Preschool? WHERE You Draw on it Matters! and Deluxe Water Wow Pads Offer More Challenge And More Fun To Preschoolers and Kindergarteners for more good ideas on fun at home that builds pre-writing skills.



When Should You Tell A Child NOT to Erase Their Mistake?


I wrote a post on erasing Teach Your Kindergartener How To Erase Like a Big Kid and one on erasers Problems With Handwriting? You Need The Best Eraser , but there are a few situations in which you don’t want a child to run for the eraser.

  1. The child who stalls for time.  Some kids want to run down the clock on their therapy session or on their homework time, and realize that erasing can help them do just that.  The fun of rubbing the eraser on the paper exceeds the fun of struggling to write or struggling to answer a question.
  2. The kid that gets upset when they make a mistake.  Some children are oblivious, but some are distressed when they write poorly.  So upset that they lose some of their focus and ability to listen to your suggestions/instructions.
  3. The child who persistently traces over their original mistake.  These kids were taught with a lot of tracing in pre-K and K, and their brains have been trained to trace.  When they see the faint outline of their mistake, they have to struggle NOT to trace it.  Oops.

What SHOULD you do?

These strategies assume that an adult is helping a child directly.  You may not need to remain there for the entire homework assignment, but adult assistance is needed to get this train turned around:

  • Ask them to write the word again.  You may need to fold the paper so that their mistake is not visible, but a correct model is visible.  You may have to write a new visual model in the margins or above their work space.
  • Use Handwriting Without Tears pages.  Their workbook pages are designed to be simple but offer visual models across the page, not just at the left margin.
  • Erase the mistake yourself.  Adults can use more force and erase more effectively.
  • Make a copy (or 2) of your child’s homework so that you can ask them to start over again, but only if it is a short assignment.  No one wants to rewrite a long page.
  • Provide more instruction before they begin their word or sentence.  A reminder that certain letters are tricky or that they need to space words out How Do You Teach Word Spacing? can prevent errors.




This paper has been more useful to older kids (6+) that I see for handwriting help than any other paper on the market, and almost any other tool Problems With Handwriting? You Need The Best Eraser , Great Mechanical Pencils Can Improve Your Child’s Handwriting Skills .  Why?  Regular lined paper, and almost all worksheets, are usually jam-packed with lines.  Red lines, green lines, lines with airplanes and worms.  There are papers designed by occupational therapists that are even more complex than the mass-market choices.

All this is often visual noise to kids with sensory processing issues and ocular or visual-perceptual issues.  These problems are sometimes subtle and appear to be behavioral.  The kids who “hate to write”.  The kids who look away when you are demonstrating how to write a letter or spell a word.  The kids who cannot seem to remember where to start a letter, even after repeated practice.  These children often do much better with HWT’s double-lined paper.

Let’s drill down into the design of this unique paper:

  • Double-lined paper provides just two lines; the baseline and the midline.  Knowing where to start uppercase letters and tall lowercase letters is important, and this paper encourages practice and awareness while still giving some structure to writing.
  • There is a wide empty space between sets of lines.  This is intentional; children have room to place the tails of lowercase “y” and “j”, for example, without blocking the uppercase or tall lowercase letters of the next line of writing.  For many kids, not knowing what to do about crowding and spacing is a good reason to stop trying to write well, or sometimes even write at all.
  • This sturdy paper is pre-punched to be used in a 3-ring binder.  The quality of the paper is very high, which means that it doesn’t tear easily when a child erases a mistake.  Most schools provide the thinnest paper for teachers to use as handouts, creating the potential for a disaster when given to a child that struggles with grading their force on an eraser, or makes multiple errors in a word.
  • Brains get practice in sizing and proportion.  Once kids have a pattern of letter formation, it is easier to accomplish without the extra midline.  But so many kids need that “training wheel” effect much longer than scrolls recognize.  Many kids need a day or two of double-lined paper use to start understanding the way a letter “h” is twice as tall as a letter “a” and the same size but aligned differently than the letter “y”.  Of course, pointing it out is important, and so is working on other writing qualities such as letter and word spacing.
  • Kids write faster.  Because they are guided to proportion and start letters correctly, they don’t waste time thinking about it or erasing incorrect letters.  Again, this doesn’t mean their brain isn’t taking it all in.  If that were true, we would start every kid on single-lined paper in preschool.
  • There are three line sizes, so you don’t have to abandon the double-lines when your kid enter middle school.  I will admit that I wish the pre-k/K paper were thicker.  But it is still fairly sturdy.
  • You can alternate using this paper with single-lined paper to see when to “take the training wheels off” and stop using double-lined paper.  Kids should always have a chance to practice with standard paper, but when the choice is between fighting and crying, and quickly executing a homework assignment, it is no contest.


The best paper wins.


When Writing Hurts: The Hypermobile Hand


Many children resist doing their homework, but most kids say “Its so BORING!” not “My hand hurts too much”.  If a child is complaining of pain, and they don’t have a joint disease such as JRA, the first thought is hypermobility.  The good news is that there are a few fast fixes that can decrease or even eliminate hand pain.

It is rare that hypermobility in the hand is directly addressed at the preschool level unless it is generalized throughout the body or severely reduces pencil grasp.  Many children have atypical grasp patterns when they cannot achieve the required stability for a standard pencil grasp.  Children with mild instability and no other developmental issues may still be able to write legibly and even fast enough to complete assignments in the early grades.  It is when the volume of work increases or the joint stability decreases that therapists get a request for service.

Here are a few strategies that can support hypermobile kids to write with less pain:

  1. Use a tabletop easel.  These can be foldable or static.  They support not just the wrist and forearm, but also the shoulder and trunk.  The angle of an easel both supports correct wrist positioning and decreases strain on the wrist and hand.  Some easels come with clips that hold the paper, but they should be placed on an angle to mirror the natural arm position.  This will require more table space, so be aware that the size of the easel could be an issue.  Simple hack:  use a three-ring binder as an easel.
  2. Enlarge the width of the pencil shaft.  My favorite pencils for grades 1+ (see photo above) have a standard #2 lead, but a wider shaft. Joint protection principles tell us that avoiding a closed joint position should lead to less strain on joints and supporting ligament structures.  You could use some of the adaptive pens available, but I find kids reject these as looking strange.  Of course, if you enlarge the shaft oo much you will find that it is more awkward, not less.  Think of those novelty pencils you buy in gift stores on vacation.  Cute but useless.  Nobody really writes with anything that thick.  Match the child’s hand size to the pencil.
  3. Increase the texture of the pencil shaft for easier grip, less pain, and more endurance.   Everyone has seen the rubbery grips you slip onto a pencil.  You can slide 3-4 onto the entire shaft, or add some tape to create a non-slip surface.  I have been adding kineseotape or Dycem to handles this year, with good results.  You are battling grasp stability, but also fatigue.  A hand that is tired is a hand that experiences more pain.  Adding texture reduces the amount of force needed for proprioceptive registration (a fancy way of saying that kids need to squeeze to fully feel what is in their hand).  Reducing force reduces pain and fatigue.
  4. Teach pacing.  Kids think that the faster they write, the faster they will be out of pain.  Breaking up the work can have better results, but it isn’t natural for children to pace themselves.  In fact, I have never seen a young child do so.  You have to teach this to kids who likely will have joint instability throughout their school years.  A schedule, a timer, organizing assignments and breaking them down into heavy writing choices and light writing choices all help.
  5. Splinting can be a real option.  Not a heavy plastic or metal splint (usually).  A neoprene splint can be a lightweight supportive choice.  These splints are comfortable and washable.  These are affordable without insurance for most families, and your OT can help you decide if this is a worthwhile pursuit.  They are durable but easily lost by younger children, so not all families send one to school.  But the support is real, and kids that have been told for years to “fix your fingers” can feel relieved that they can now focus on writing and composing on the paper.

For more information on hypermobility, read The Hypermobile Hand: More Than A Strength Problem and For Kids With Hypermobility, “Listen To Your Body” Doesn’t Teach Them To Pace Themselves. Here’s What Really Helps.

Looking for more assistance with hypermobility?  My new e-book is coming out this summer, and it will address the issues of the early years (0-5).  The series will continue with school age kids and teens.  But you don’t have to wait; visit my website tranquil babies and request a consultation to discuss your child’s treatment plan and make a better plan that works for everyone…today!




Here are some great reasons why I love these books:






Starting kindergarten is so exciting for most kids, but learning to write can be challenging for those children that have fASD, SPD, fine motor or visual-motor issues.  Even though fewer and fewer teachers know how to teach handwriting well, it is still a necessary skill for young children.  Learning Without Tears has developed an amazing book that can help your child build skills faster and easier:  Kickstart Kindergarten!

Why Writing (Still) Really Matters

There are research studies that suggest that the physical act of forming letters positively affects memory and comprehension.  These studies suggest the benefits continue all the way through into college-level instruction.  Handwriting is a multi-sensory experience.  The brain is using many different areas of the brain are involved in organizing and coordinating it’s tasks to execute the ability to write.  Young brains need to practice and achieve a high level of coordinated activity before they can focus on comprehension and critical thinking.

The demands of writing create neural activity that could be considered  “brain exercise”.   I know I see it that way.  Taking notes at the high school and college level requires synthesis; the cognitive act of summarizing and condensing a lecture into a shorter message that you write down quickly.  It is a mental skill not required when you take verbatim notes on a laptop.  Oops.

Simply put, the reason keyboarding and digital access isn’t enough is simple:  by the time struggling writers are able to put their thoughts into words in a digital format, they have already developed frustration and even aversion to engaging in writing in any form.  

This is unacceptable to me.  Clever and creative kids are learning to dislike language arts because they can’t write with enough skill and speed.  I have struggling writers ask me: “How many words do I need in each sentence, and how many sentences”  This isn’t making them develop their ability to compose anything.  It is making them hate language arts.  At a time where communication skills are essential to success at any profession.

Kickstart Kindergarten:  Fun, Well-Designed, and Easy to Teach:

This workbook is the one you want to give your new preschool graduate this summer!  Kindergarten has become more academic.  That isn’t an endorsement.  It is a fact, and the kindest thing to do for children is to give them the best materials to achieve the skills they need to succeed.  This book is designed to boost the automaticity needed to go to kindergarten.  What is that?  To perform language arts curriculum, your child needs to be able to write with ease.  If they have to think about how a letter is made, that takes away the brainpower needed to think about spelling and expression.  Whole language has been proven to be a whole failure.  There are teachers who haven’t read the research and administrators stuck in 1985 when they finished grad school.  You can’t help them, but you can help your child!

Here are some, but not all, of the terrific features of this workbook:

  • As with all HWT books, the paper is sturdy and won’t tear with repeated erasing or careless handling.
  • The individual letter pages start with tracing and fade to independence.
  • The gray boxes help kids with consistent and age-appropriate sizing and avoid reversals.  BTW, reversals are normal at this age.  Preventing reversals is even better than correcting them.  This book does both.
  • Each sample is placed near the space available for a child to write.  They don’t need to move their hand or copy the errors they made in the previous attempt (big issue for any kid with ocular control issues or visual organization issues!)
  • Letters are grouped into developmentally-correct bunches, based on the later pre-K motor developmental milestones.  This means that an “A” isn’t the first letter learned.  Letters that are all vertical and horizontal lines are the easiest to form, so they are first.
  • There are still coloring opportunities and plenty of chances to repeat and practice.
  • They include pages for parents and teachers to use as formation references.  You can’t teach writing if you aren’t sure how a letter is supposed to be formed.  I will confess that after taking the evaluation course, I found out that I have some very bad habits that probably date back to preschool.  And never got fixed.
  • Numbers are not ignored.  Numbers are presented in order, but their formation is actually not far from a developmental progression.

Here are some screen shots to get you excited about this book:


Is your child entering first grade, but clearly in need of more practice?

These books aren’t going to make them feel self-conscious about needing help.  Take off the cover if you are worried that they will be embarrassed to use a book with “Kindergarten” in the title.  And tell them that this is the easiest way to get better at handwriting …fast!  You have their back, as always!

Is Automaticity The Key To Handwriting Success?


I know that this is a bold statement.  Handwriting is a complex skill, with visual-motor coordination, perceptual, cognitive and postural components.  But when I evaluate a child’s writing, and I watch them having to think about where to start and sequence movements to form a letter and place it on a line, and then decide how far apart the letters and words should be, it makes me think that the lack of automaticity is often a child’s biggest hurdle.  Even if their motor control isn’t terrific, they can still have legible and functional writing if they make fewer errors and write fast enough to complete their work in a reasonable amount of time.  Slow and labored writing isn’t functional, even if it is beautiful.

Think about how important it is for any visual-motor skill to become automatic in order to be efficient.   You cannot hit that ball if you have to think about it.  You just can’t.  It has to be a smooth and automatic response that comes from practice and refined feedback loops developed by experience.  While practicing, professional athletes drill down on minute aspects of the swing, but during the game, they choke if they “overthink”.  Ask anyone who has done a ton of free-throws in basketball (you get an unimpeded chance to drop that orange ball into the hoop) for practice but cannot make it when the game is on the line.

In this current culture, teachers have so many skills to impart.  Handwriting is still a skill children need.  Paper workbooks and worksheets are still used extensively until 3rd or 4th grade.  You cannot wait it out until kids get old enough to keyboard.  And a struggling writer in second grade is already feeling bad about their abilities. Sometimes so bad that they don’t want to do the language arts work that develops spelling, vocabulary and creative expression.   So waiting until they can type isn’t the answer.  You want excitement and enthusiasm for reading and writing early on.  Nothing develops excitement like success.  Nothing kills enthusiasm like boredom and failure.

If automaticity is the key to handwriting success, how do you develop it in children?  I think the folks at Handwriting Without Tears have figured it out.  I no longer use any other handwriting materials.  Their workbooks and pre-K multi-sensory learning tools are just too good.

  1. If you look at the pre-K and early primary workbooks carefully, you will see that the left-to-right, top-to-bottom orientation is embedded in everything.  Even the cute animals for little kids to color are all facing left-to-right!
  2. The two lines (baseline and midline) are simple to use.  No wondering where to place letters.   The pre-K letters are at the bottom of the page, creating an emerging automatic sense of baseline.
  3. The developmental progression (versus the alphabetical progression) builds slowly from vertical and horizontal lines to curves and diagonal lines.  Letters are grouped by the way they are formed, making automatic movements emerge early and consistently.
  4. Workbook pages aren’t overwhelming with activities, but the skills are repeated to intentionally develop writing automaticity.

For example, instead of writing 12 letter”B”s and 12 letter “b”s,  uppercase letters, with their larger and simpler hand movements are taught together and earlier.  Letters “b” and “d” aren’t taught together since they can easily be reversed.  Letters “b” and “h” are taught together since the formation is very similar.  Fewer reversals, more success without having to go back and re-teach letter formation.

Take a look at the best “pre-K into K” book I have ever seen, HWT’s KickStart Kindergarten.  It is the perfect summer bridge activity for your preschooler or your older special needs child.

Happy summer writing!



When Should You Begin To Teach Handwriting? (You May be Surprised!)


The ability to bring two hands to midline and use fingertips to hold a block is a pre-writing skill!

Many formal handwriting programs begin at 4 years of age.  Handwriting Without Tears, Fundations, and others begin with children tracing letters and quickly progress to writing.  But the foundational skills for handwriting actually begin early.  Before your child’s first birthday.  Yes, that early.  And, believe it or not, that is when you could be teaching important skills that will eventually morph into handwriting.

No, I am not suggesting that we start teaching infants to write!  I have met a handful of very gifted children, some of whom could read before 4, but not one was writing letters before their first birthday.  The foundational skills for handwriting are grasp, reach, bilateral control, posture, ocular (eye) control and visual perception.  And every single one of these skills is developing before a child turns 1.

How do you develop these skills?  Play.  Play with small toys, play with big ones.  Play that requires a child to move.  Crawling through a tunnel and climbing over cushions to develop arm and hand control.  Play on their stomach and play standing at a table for posture and core stability.  Play that requires more than tapping a screen or pressing a button.  I love my tablet as much as the next person, but I was fortunate to grow up before it was invented.  I had something called “toys”.

If you sent me to teach occupational therapists in a developing country, I would bring a small bag of the best toys I know:  crayons, paper, scissors, LEGOs, balls of all sizes, and I would use some things that every home is likely to have:  small cups for scooping and emptying, scarves for peek-a-boo, and little pieces of food for self-feeding.  This is all you need.  Really.  Giving a child the chance to feed themselves, play in water and sand, build and scribble can do a lot to build foundational skills.

One thing that I forgot to mention as a foundational skill is……interest. Some kids are very interested in coloring.  Many are not.  Same with reading.  How do you get your child interested in writing?  You allow them access to tools, make the tools desirable, and show them that you enjoy coloring or writing.  When your infant reaches for your pen and you slide it away from them, they are showing you interest.  They can’t use a pen, but they can mess around with food puree on their high chair tray, drawing lines in the goo.  Prewriting at work.  When your toddler wants to eat the marker, remind them that these are for scribbling, and help them to make a masterpiece.  Every day.  Find fun materials.  I am a big fan of crayons instead of markers, but there are some sparkly crayons and some great markers and papers that don’t destroy your home while your child is learning to draw and write Color Wonder Paper Will Boost Creativity and Save Your Walls.

Not an artist?  No problem!  Fake it.  Just like you gleefully eat veggies even though you’d rather have cake, scribble and make something silly on paper.  Show how much fun it is.  You might find out that you are more creative than you thought, or that once you kill that critic in your head, you actually like to draw.

Child development experts bemoan the limited language skills of kids from families without books.  Philanthropists like Dolly Parton donate tons of books to poor families in the hopes that children will be read to and develop a love of reading.  Guess what?  Children need to have early experiences with writing and drawing as well.  The family that has no crayons, no markers, no paper and no interest in drawing or writing will not inspire their children.

Give the gift of “pre” prewriting to your child, and give them a head start today!

Looking for more information on handwriting and development?  Read Have More Fun When You Use Drawing To Develop Pre-Writing Skills and Why Dot-To-Dot Letter Practice Slows Down Writing Speed and Legibility.


Which Improves Pencil Grasp Best: A Pencil Grip Or A Thicker Pencil?


kelli-tungay-324329A a pediatric occupational therapist, I am often asked to weigh in on this debate.  Not often enough, it seems.  There are a lot of kids out there using pencils with wonky grasp patterns because no one has made an effort to improve the way they hold a pencil, or they doubt that it matters.  Oops.  Although grasp isn’t often or evn usually the biggest issue with writing problems, a really poor grasp can reduce control and increase pain and fatigue.  Not every kid with poor pencil grasp is a hot mess.  Some of them just need good instruction and good materials.  For the others, it might be time to get an OT involved.

Kids that struggle with pencil grasp are often (in my opinion, too often) given a pencil grip and told to use it when they write. It may help, but it may not.  An yet, I will still hand out my favorite pencil grip if I think that it will build control and strength. The Pencil Grip That Strengthens Your Child’s Fingers As They Write.

I thought I would drill down into the ways that OTs think about the use of pencil grips, and present a few alternatives to reflexively sending kids home with a bit of plastic on the end of a pencil:

  • Change the pencil.  Triangular pencils give more sensory feedback during writing, and they offer a flat surface for finger pads.  Thick mechanical pencils still have a standard-thickness lead, but they also are easier to hold for some children.  Short pencils, including golf pencils, force more fingertip contact and can be helpful (but not if grasp is really weak or awkward).
  • Don’t jump into pencil use too early.  Until a child can manage a mature grasp, I try very hard to keep them using crayons when they are not yet in kindergarten.  I like the flip crayons from Learning Without Tears because they are so very small, but not all kids in kindergarten are ready for them.  I break a toddler crayon in two so that they get the benefits of a thick shaft but they will be unable to use a fisted grasp.
  • Like markers?  I only use them if they are the Pipsqueak markers from Crayola.  Nice thick, short shafts for little fingers.  Markers don’t give a child any resistance at all, so they don’t give enough sensory feedback or strengthening for my kids that need both.  And they make a mess most of the time.  I don’t have the time to scrub off markers.
  • Build strength and control with play.  Yes, fine motor play.  Totally outdated (just joking) but necessary.  I use the iCreate tablet stylus, bead stringing, therapy putty and lots of tiny toys like travel Connect Four games.  Even baking.     Utensil use counts too. How Using Utensils To Eat Prepares Your Child To Write    Children are spending less time with toys and more with tablets, so I insist that they use a tablet stylus with me in sessions.  They have no idea that the physical “drag” of the plastic point on the glass screen as they move objects around is creating resistance that helps their fingers get stronger.
  • Color with children, draw with children. A lot.  Coloring is less stressful to the risk-averse child who thinks he can’t write. Drawing simple shapes is directly applicable to writing letters and numbers.  Think “T” and a vertical cross, “A” and a volcano.  Watching an adult and listening to their narration, such as ” I am coloring around and around to fill in the balloon, since it is a circle shape”  is very helpful to young children who resist direct instruction.  The child that doesn’t naturally gravitate to coloring may need downloads of their fave character or stickers to add to the picture to make it exciting.  But the key is the adult interaction.





Why should learning to write mean a pile of boring worksheets?  It shouldn’t!  This week, try teaching your preschooler to draw fun shapes that mirror correct letter formation, start/sequence and connections, and watch their handwriting skills take off!

Why draw?  Because some kids need more practice, avoid writing due to fear of failure, or simply need their pre-writing practice to be more fun than traditional worksheets.  Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) does a terrific job of teaching pencil control skills in their preschool and kindergarten books, but their pages often don’t offer enough experience or variety for kids that struggle with pencil control.  I tried using multiple copies of their worksheets, but the kids I treated in occupational therapy sessions got bored too quickly.

I decided to develop tracing pages that naturally expand into guided and independent drawing practice.  As an example, kids have more fun drawing multiple large volcanos that imitate the correct formation of the letter “A” (two diagonal lines that start at the TOP) than writing the letter “A” on a worksheet ten times.  Connecting the lines at the bottom is also an easier way to teach children that they are aiming to connect the diagonal strokes when they write the horizontal line, not slashing wildly across them.

Kids usually enjoy embellishing their drawings.  This gives me more opportunities to work with them on pencil grasp and control skills.  Lava rocks are drawn as circles, and dripping lava curves down the volcano like the letter “S”.  Exploding lava can shoot out of the top of your volcano, curve and drop down onto the ground.  This drawing stroke is very similar to the tricky initial stroke that forms a lowercase “f” (a letter that trips up more kindergarteners and first graders than I can count!).  Beginning a crayon stroke at the top of the volcano is actually an important motor control skill needed for all the letters with top connections such as “F”, “D”, and “P”.   Children will work harder to make this connection because they think it is so cool that volcanoes explode!!

I use gray tracing lines for my beginner drawings for the same reason that HWT uses gray crayon strokes in their preschool workbooks.  Tracing, not connecting dots, helps kids understand that letters and numbers are made of  a sequence of strokes.  The alternative?  I see four year-olds writing the letter “L” without creating a sharp angle at the bottom; it’s a swoop.  I also see the letters “A” and “M” starting at the bottom, then curving up and around in a single line.  Oops!

An important goal of learning uppercase letters first is that these larger, simpler strokes are required motor practice for the finer movements needed to execute the trace-backs and reversals of lowercase letters such as “a”, “b”, “d”, and “p”.  I know exactly what happens if a child doesn’t have the control necessary to learn lowercase letter formation.  If I had a dollar for every letter “a” made from a little circle placed next to a short line….!

Incorrect letter formation and poor control are two of the most common reasons that children in first or second grade are identified as slow or sloppy writers and get referrals to OT for handwriting.  Not every child is able to or interested in re-learning correct handwriting skills later on, and why should anyone have to re-learn handwriting?  Don’t teachers (and OTs) have better things to do?  Teach it correctly the first time!

Drawing gives kids the visual-motor practice they need while providing a fun, creative experience that adds depth to classroom lesson plans about nature, holidays and other subjects.  Try drawing flags, birthday cakes (always a favorite), ice cream cones and more!


Why Gifted Preschoolers Should Be Taught Handwriting Early (And With The Best Strategies!)



guillaume-de-germain-329206Gifted children are identified by their asynchronous development.   The three year-old that can read, the two year-old that can play a song on the piano after hearing it once at music class, the four year-old that can complete his sister’s math homework…from second grade! These children have one or more advanced areas of skill that classify them as gifted.  One of the skills that rarely emerges early in the gifted population is handwriting.  More often, gifted children have problems with handwriting. Some are just sloppy, some produce illegible products even after trying their best.

A few theories exist to explain this phenomenon:  gifted children are more concerned with expression and ignore handwriting lessons, their typical motor development doesn’t keep up with their advanced cognitive skill progression and they give up, or perhaps a gifted student with poor handwriting has an undiagnosed motor and learning disabilities.

I am going to suggest an additional explanation:  gifted children are not given effective early pre-writing instruction and are often taught to write using strategies that create confusion, boredom or frustration, turning a fast learner into an underachiever.  Gifted kids like novelty, complexity and intensity.  Tracing a dotted-line “A” over and over isn’t any of those things.  Gifted children often remain so focused on their passions that it is easier to let them go and shine in their chosen areas than to make handwriting fun and appealing.

Yes, it is true that children with advanced cognitive skills could have average or below-average motor skills that don’t allow them to independently write a complex original story.  Writing details down may take too long for their quick minds, or they need to use letters they don’t yet have the skills to execute.  A child with an amazing imagination and vocabulary may find standard writing drills dull in comparison to the creative process.  Gifted children may even be averse to the unavoidable failure inherent in practice that leads to mastery.

What can be done?

  • Good pre-writing instruction is essential to build the foundational motor control and spatial skills.  This includes teaching grasp rather than waiting for it to develop, purposely building two-handed coordination and drawing into play,  and using other pre-writing tasks such as mazes, puzzles and tracing/dot-to-dot (not for letters, for drawing).  See Why Dot-To-Dot Letter Practice Slows Down Writing Speed and Legibility to understand why dots aren’t a great strategy for any child.  Learning to draw balloons, birthday cakes and Christmas trees is fun.  It is also a great way to practice writing the curves and intersecting angles that letters require.
  • Use multi-sensory, multi-media methods to develop pre-writing and handwriting skills.  Many gifted children love sensory-based experiences.  Their natural drive for intensity and complexity can be satisfied when letters are made from pretzel sticks or Play-Dough.
  • Create a fun, open environment for learning, in which challenge is expected and success is both celebrated and beside the point.  If children are taught that they are expected to know all the answers since they are gifted, exploration can be suppressed.  If they learn that failure is anticipated and shame-free, it allows them to try again and invent solutions to the problems they face.
  • Harness the skills a gifted child possesses to advance their handwriting development.  Children that have great spatial awareness notice letter formation similarities and proportion rules.  They transform an “F” into an “E” and chop two vertical lines in half to make an “H”.  Children in love with language can use fun mnemonic devices or little “stories” that help them form letters correctly.  When the letter “S” starts as a mini “C” and then “turns around and goes back home” they remember the formation of this tricky letter more easily than copying or tracing alone.

As an occupational therapist, I use the Learning Without Tears program (formerly known as Handwriting Without Tears).  The materials are high-quality, the learning progression is developmental and builds one skill on top of the previous skill, and the early levels are more sensory-based than most writing programs.  See Can HWT’s Flip Crayons Transform Pencil Grasp in Preschoolers? and Why Do You Start (Uppercase) Letters at the Top? Speed and Accuracy for some HWT strategies that really work.  Gifted kids usually want to be creative and expansive when learning, so take a look at Have More Fun When You Use Drawing To Develop Pre-Writing Skills to make teaching a gifted child   easier.

If you are the parent of a gifted child, or if you teach gifted preschoolers, please share your best strategies to support handwriting here!!!  If you are wondering if you should tell your child that their advanced skills have a name, “gifted”, check out Should You Tell Your Gifted Child About Their Giftedness? for some good reasons why they need to know and how to approach this issue with them.

If your gifted child is driving you nuts, or is driving their teacher nuts, read   Gifted Child? Try “How Does Your Engine Run” For More Peace at Home and SchoolWhy Gifted Children Aren’t Their Teacher’s Favorite Students…. and Is Your Gifted Child A “Troublemaker”? to better understand what could be going on.


The Elf on the Shelf Could Get Your Child to Write a Letter to Santa!



Write to Santa, but KEEP the note since the elf brings it to the North Pole…and then back to your home!

‘Tis the season, and Elf On The Shelf is back for more fun!  Some parents adore the concept and cannot wait to move that little elf around the house every night, and others mock him and his expanding merchandising.  Now that he is getting kids to write and draw, and parents will be able to save the heartfelt message as an ornament, I’m in with the Elf!  Not familiar with the Elf story?  Read Elf on the Shelf Controversy: Let’s Try Positive Gossiping to Santa.  Used as an encouragement and not a punishment or a threat, I am OK with this holiday tradition.

You use the paper and materials in the kit to write and bake-off a letter into an ornament that the elf “shows” to Santa on his nightly trip, and then he “returns” it to your tree.  The kit includes a storybook, materials to write, bake and hang your ornament.

As a pediatric occupational therapist, I wanted to share a few ideas that could make this more fun and a bit less stressful for children that struggle with handwriting, learning and attention issues:

  • The set includes 8 special sheets of paper that will get baked off in the oven to create an ornament, but I would encourage everyone to have their child refine their message and practice writing/drawing the note on regular paper before putting it on the special sheets.  Use these sheets as a template so that your child is aware that they can’t write more than a few lines at most.  There is no way to erase on the special sheets, and although some errors are charming, a child can be heartbroken if they think that they are sending a messy message.
  • I would encourage parents to consider copying the message so that kids have a sample to copy, rather than free writing.  Copying is an easier task in the developmental progression of handwriting, and reduces the stress for success on kids.  Nobody needs stress when making a special request to Old Saint Nick.
  • Younger kids, or kids with strong fears of failure or anxiety in general can draw or decorate a parent’s writing.  As long as they are involved, I don’t think it has to be all or nothing.  Many of my most avoidant clients get excited when I tell them that they just have to draw a sun (circle with rays) or some grass (short vertical lines that start at the top and descend to a baseline) to a picutre that I am drawing, and I  will take care of all the hard stuff.  Sometimes they even decide that they want to draw much more than they were planning to contribute.
  • Encourage your child to make the letters and designs a bit large, since they will shrink with the baking process.  Most young children cannot comprehend this step and will assume that the finished product will come out of the oven the same size that it was when it went in.  Tiny details may not be visible, tiny letters may be illegible.  Make a sample if possible for children that need proof of everything before they believe you.
  • If you know that your child may be impulsive or has such significant struggles with design, handwriting, or decision-making that you will need more than 8 sheets to create one final project, buy two kits.  The holidays are challenging enough without a fun activity ending without even one finished ornament.  If things go well and you don’t need the extra box, you have something that can be a wonderful gift for another family this season!

If you use this kit with your child this Christmas season, please write a comment and let my readers know how it worked out for you!



Make Handwriting Fun While Getting Ready For The New School Year

Here in the US, kids are getting ready to go back to school.  And most of them haven’t been writing much in the last 6-8 weeks.  At the kindergarten level, some children will have forgotten any lowercase letters they knew in the spring.  At the 1-2 grade levels, it is not uncommon for kids to forget how to form letters, where to place them on the baseline, and how to use simple punctuation.   Teachers sometimes need to use the first 1-2 weeks for review alone.

What if they didn’t need to review?  What if your child was ready to hit the ground running (and writing)?  There is nothing like seeing a confident kid sit down to crush her homework instead of struggling through it.  For all those writers who worked hard last year and are a little nervous to pick up a pencil again, here are some ideas that help getting back to writing fun and easy:

  1. Get good materials.  Kids are just like adults.  We like new, cool stuff.  So do they.  I recommend using the best eraser (Problems With Handwriting? You Need The Best Eraser ) and either the small Learning Without Tears (they changed their name!!!)  pencils for kindergarteners, or the Papermate 1.3mm lead mechanical pencils for older kids.  Take a look at my post on these useful pencils Great Mechanical Pencils Can Improve Your Child’s Handwriting Skills
  2. Use fun workbooks like Madlibs and games like Hangman.  Make up games that you think your kids will find funny.  Try the Junior version of Madlibs for grades 2-3, and the regular one for the higher grades.  There are themes for every kid, trust me.  Something will be funny.  Do them together with your child, have a contest for silliest madlib, send them to relatives that can appreciate this humor, etc.
  3. Target any errors made in writing their first and family name first.  Those errors will be repeated over and over in the first few days of school if you do not focus on them.  Time to make this a priority.
  4. Figure out where the gaps are, and hit the low-hanging fruit next.  Why?  Because that builds confidence.  Look for simple errors with easy-to-write or frequently written letters.  Think “a”, “e”, and “t”.  Doesn’t even have to be letters; could be numbers.  Kids need to feel like they can hit singles, and then they will try harder for doubles and triples.  Forgive the baseball reference; I saw a ton of stickers and vanity plates today.   Apparently all of my neighbors are big baseball fans!

There are only a few weeks of summer left, but if you make a small effort,  it can mean a lot to a child’s first weeks of school!

Problems With Handwriting? You Need The Best Eraser




A good eraser can make a frustrated child more willing to fix writing errors.  A bad eraser confirms their failure as a writer.

Occupational therapists in some schools hand out HWT pencils and a variety of pencil grips like candy, but many forget about how important it is for kids to erase mistakes successfully in order for their work to be truly legible.  The Pentel Hi-Polymer eraser is the one that gets the job done.

I will confess that I did not discover this eraser on my own.  A smart parent turned me onto this amazing school tool, and I am over the moon about how much it helps children complete their writing assignments.   It would be almost criminal to let kids go back to school this fall with those nasty pink erasers that leave more of a mess than they remove!  Every kid needs this eraser, but kids with handwriting challenges need them even more.

Here is a visual example of how well this eraser works.  I used my fave mechanical pencil for younger children, the one I blogged about in Great Mechanical Pencils Can Improve Your Child’s Handwriting Skills , and wrote a few numbers in the darkly shaded boxes of a Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) sheet.  I erased my “5′ and “6”.  Notice that the shading in the boxes wasn’t removed along with the pencil marks:


Numbers 5 and 6 have been erased so well that tracing-over the original mistake is impossible!

Here are a few reasons to add this eraser to your back-to-school list:

  • While large enough for small hands to use, it is not so big that it is difficult for children to control.  Think erasing isn’t an important motor skill?  Take a look at Teach Your Kindergartener How To Erase Like a Big Kid
  • It is latex-free; a necessity for children with latex sensitivity.
  • There are fewer eraser “crumbs” created during use, so less mess (for parents) to clean up, and less visual and tactile distractions for kids with ADHD, SPD and ASD.
  • This eraser doesn’t require substantial pressure to remove marks.   Great for kids with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, JRA, and all the other conditions where strength and endurance are concerns for handwriting.
  • Because of it’s softness and effectiveness, it rarely tears paper, even the cheap, thin paper commonly used for school worksheets and workbooks.

Pentel Hi-Polymer erasers are very affordable, and commonly come in packs of three. This is helpful when you know in your heart that the first two will be lost before the week is over, never to be seen again.  When your child realizes that this eraser helps them finish their homework a bit faster (you might want to mention this if they don’t notice it right away), they will work harder to hold onto that last one!

There are a few situations in which not erasing is a better choice than erasing.  Read When Should You Tell A Child NOT to Erase Their Mistake? to learn more!



Taping The Paper To The Table For Your Child? Stop!

Many young children between 2 and 5, especially children with low muscle tone or postural instability, will struggle with bilateral control.  In preschool, one way to notice this is to see the paper sliding around the table while a child colors.  The common response of teachers (and parents) is to tape the paper down.  Oops!  This  eliminates any demand for both hands to work together.  Bilateral control only develops if it is needed and practiced.

The better approach, the one that makes the brain work and builds a child’s skills, is to make it even more slippery while making the activity more fun.

Why?  This child,’s brain, as described, needs more information about what is going wrong with the activity.  You can use heavier paper, stickers in a book that need accurate placement, or fun glittery markers.  Really, anything that makes a child care more about placing marks accurately.   I select the smoothest table surface available.  Glass coffee tables are a fave at home.  The alternate choice is a bumpy surface, something that will be slightly uneven and make the paper move more with each stroke.

I have some older kids that really struggle but can use a visual cue.  I make a mark on their paper and tell them to put their “helper hand” – the one not coloring- on this mark.  This is sometimes helpful, but it is limiting the extent that this hand is providing optimal postural support.

Yup, support.  The hand that holds the paper is also performing another function.  It is stabilizing the child’s body so that the dominant hand can execute a skilled movement.

So….no more tape on that paper, OK?

Prevent the Summer Slide in Handwriting By Making It Fun To Write





