Pen skills in pre-schoolers

[Jchihuahua]

Pencil grip is a huge issue in schools nowadays...lots of kids don't hold pencils in the traditional way and by 7 or 8 its really hard to change how they hold them. I wonder if that is being caused by kids being taught to write much younger and when their motor skills maybe aren't ready to hold the pencil properly?

That's a good point.

In my Reception class there are a lot of children who are just not ready to write. We get them to form letters and practise their names in other ways, for example writing with their finger or a paintbrush in a tray of sand, with a brush and bucket of water outdoors, making letters out of playdough, using a glue stick to write and sprinkling glitter on the top etc. If they're not ready to write, they're not ready, as simple as that. As soon as they are ready we make sure they learn the correct way to hold a pencil but we don't push them until we feel they're ready.

On the other hand, some children (most often girls) are SO ready to write by the time they start reception!