Letter Reversals

April 9, 2026April 9, 2026 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Letter Reversals…they are a major cause for handwriting concern by most parent’s standards. Here we are covering information about writing letters backwards and what is normal for letter reversals in development. We also have some great tips for addressing common letter reversal struggles and even reversal activities that can help with visual perception handwriting struggles. Read on!

Letter b and d reversals: These specific strategies cover letter b and d reversals.

Letter p and q reversals: You’ll find more specific letter reversal information in this post on reversing letter p and q.

Also check out these activities to work on backwards letters.

Writing Letters in Reverse

Do letter reversals mean dyslexia? Not exactly! Dyslexia means problems learning to read, spell, and write. However, there is much more to reversals than what meets the eye, and should be assessed before jumping straight to the conclusion of dyslexia. Be sure to read our resource on Dyslexia and occupational therapy for more information.

One creative tool to support the skills needed for this area of development is our new color by letter worksheet. Just print and go and work on letter identification and matching skills.

Check out all of our letter formation worksheets for more free printables to target letter forming.

Letter reversals such as switching b and d or writing letters and numbers backwards can be a result of various things. Here is information on letter reversals.

Letter Reversals Normal Development

Reversals are age appropriate up until 7-8 years of age!

That’s right! Letter reversals are normal up to a certain age range. And when kids write letters backwards it is actually typical development in handwriting skills. Working on letter reversals in occupational therapy (and other visual perceptual areas) can be a common occurrence for school-based OTs…but just because kids are writing letters backwards, it doesn’t mean there is a true problem indicating a need for intervention.

It takes our brains that long to integrate all the skills needed to form a letter correctly and automatically during written expression. Skills needed range from phonetic awareness, ability to imitate pre-writing strokes, automation of letter formation, and higher level cognitive skills for multi-tasking.

Some kiddo’s develop these skills faster than others. Some kiddo’s struggle with these skills and may receive support services such as occupational therapy or pull out services with their school’s reading specialist before age 7.

Services provided before age 7 are typically preventative and because the child has shown struggles in the foundation skills needed for reading and writing, such as phonemic awareness, challenges with pre-writing strokes and shape formation (visual motor integration), poor fine motor skills, dominance concerns or underlying vision concerns.

What is a letter reversal

The term Letter reversals refers to several things related to reversing letters in reading or writing:

Writing a specific letter backwards, when they replace a letter with another such as forming a letter b as a d or a letter p as a letter q
Writing a letter upside down or flipped, such as forming a u as an n
Reading a letter backwards, as when kids replace a d with a b
Writing letters backwards as when kids write letters h, n, s, z, etc. in a mirror image
Transposing letters or switching the order of letters when writing
Reversing or writing numbers backwards

Common Letter and Number Reversals

So, knowing that it is quite common developmentally, to reverse letters and numbers up until age 7 or 8, it can also help to know which letters are commonly reversed in writing.

Letter Reversals List

These letters and numbers are often times transposed for one another:

b and d
n and u
w and m
s and z
3 and E
2 and 5
s and 5

It’s easy to see why the letters and numbers listed above are often reversed. They all contain similar pencil strokes. For children that are just learning to write, spatial integration can be still developing. Kids are getting the muscle memory in place can replace one letter or number for another.

These letters are often written backwards:

Each of these letters has a starting point at the top and pencil strokes that then go into a different direction. Children that are still developing handwriting skills are establishing the motor plan for direction changes with the pencil. The can sometimes “guess” the correct direction which results in letters being written backwards.

Numbers that are commonly written backwards include:

Each of these numbers also have a direction change which could easily be confused.

In many cases, working on letter and number formation so the muscle memory is established with fix reversal issues. Using multisensory formation activities helps to establish that motor plan.

Letter reversals can be related to phonetic awareness difficulties. — There can be a connection between letter reversal problems and phonetic awareness delays.

Phonetic Awareness and Letter Reversals

The current theory among the educational community is that reversals start with phonemic awareness. If a child is lacking phonemic awareness, they may struggle with letter identification and spelling needed for fluent written expression. Similar struggles may also be seen with numbers, resulting in a negative impact on math skills.

In my clinical experience, I have found that children with high rates of ear infections and PE tubes (ear tubes) struggle with sound awareness. If the kiddo is unable to hear the sound of the letter clearly and consistently, it leads to poor sound awareness.

I have also found that children with difficulties with attention and auditory filtering often pair the wrong letter sound with wrong letter. This is important to note in sessions as it may require remediation by a speech therapist or reading specialist if available. Here is more information and activities for auditory processing.

While phonetics play a large role in reversals, many other foundational skills may influence whether a child will struggle with reversals or not.

Letter reversals and a connection to hand dominance — There may be a connection between letter reversals and hand dominance.

Hand Dominance and Letter Reversals

Hand dominance is typically fully developed by five years of age. Right at the same time most children are learning and mastering the formation of letters and numbers. It also coincides with the start of kindergarten, or formal education where children who are struggling may be noticed for the first time. Writing with both hands can be a common struggle and an indicator of hand dominance challenges.

Children with handedness issues, whether it’s mixed dominance or delayed development of dominance, are more likely to struggle with left versus right tasks.

This plays into reversal concerns as many of these children cannot consistently discriminate left from right, leading to b’s and d’s, p’s and q’s being flipped. Often times, they are unable to recognize that they have made the mistake as their brain is registering the letter as they meant it to be.

VIsual processing plays a big part in letter reversals. Here's what you need to know. — Visual processing plays a big part in letter reversals. Here’s what you need to know…

Letter Reversals and Visual Processing

Vision is can be one of the biggest challenges facing children who struggle with reversals. Chances are, they have had an underlying vision concern that goes unaddressed or unrecognized during the critical learning period of letters and their sounds.

You will find much more information on visual perception in our free visual perception lab series.

(Children in the U.S. typically begin to learn letters and sounds between 3 and 4 years of age when they enter preschool programs. Curriculums now expect children to know their letters, sounds and how to write them upon entering kindergarten.)

Due to their vision deficit, the child may not consistently see the same image of the letter each time, or may not see the letter that is being taught due to “wandering” eyes or poor abilities to focus on the letter. The kiddo now has a poor foundation from which to build on, due to difficulties with recalling from their visual memory what the letter looks like, and pairing it with the correct sound.

To add to vision deficits, vision is not just what we see, or how the eye’s work together. It is also a motor task of taking information in with the eyes and reproducing an image, or in this case, letters on paper. This skill is known as visual motor integration and also plays a role in reversals.

Here are free visual perception worksheets that can address a variety of visual skills.

Visual Motor Integration and Letter Reversals

Visual motor integration allows us to write, draw and paint freely. To do all of these things, we go through a set development of producing pre-writing strokes and basic shapes in imitation to freely producing them from our memories and eventually becoming automatic. Here is more information and activities related to visual motor skills.

Most children learn to imitate these strokes and shapes at a young age from top to bottom and left to right. However, some children do not learn it this way or their brains are not “wired” to follow this pattern of development.

Children who deviate from this pattern may have difficulties with reversals as they struggle to learn and integrate letter stroke combinations in the correct order. When this happens, they struggle to write fluently and reversals may begin to appear.

Signs of poor visual motor integration skills that could lead to reversals include:

Segmental Drawing—drawing a shape one stroke at a time instead of integrated
Bottom to top orientation when drawing
Right to left orientation when drawing
Difficulties crossing the midline during drawing tasks
Rotation of the paper to adjust for angle execution
Failed attempts to imitate basic shapes after the child has stated what the shape is

Reversing letters can be related to an executive function difficulty. — Writing letters in reverse can be a trouble with executive functioning skills.

Executive Functioning and Letter Reversals

Executive functioning skills refer to our higher level thinking that includes attention, multi-tasking and memory, among many other skills. Writing requires all of these skills to be working at their best. If a child is struggling with any of these skills, they may demonstrate reversals and poor overall handwriting.

Reversals and poor handwriting may be the result of the child being unable to recall the strokes of the letter, the sequence of the strokes, what the letter looks like, where to start the letter, how big to make the letter, what each letter sound is, how to spell a word and complete their thought.

Oh, and lets add in that they have to remember how to hold their pencil correctly. For a kiddo who is struggling, this is a CHALLENGE.

There are so many more things that go into writing that may lead to reversals then what I have listed, but are too many to list out.

The main concept of executive functioning is that if the child cannot make it all work together, from fine motor to phonemic awareness to visual motor, they are more likely to struggle with reversals in their work.

Letter Reversal INterventions

It is important to recognize that reversals may be the sign of underlying deficits with foundational skills and should be addressed when they are noticed. The sooner that these underlying deficits are addressed the better off the kiddo will be. Once a child has had a long enough time period to practice incorrectly, it will be that much harder to break the “bad habits” and correct the reversals.

You will find many letter reversal interventions in this blog post.

This resource on letter b and d reversals is a helpful read on how specifically to work on these commonly reversed letters. You’ll find multi-sensory writing strategies to address b-d letter reversals.

2. Try “building” letters to establish the motor plan needed to create muscle memory. Use different colors to help children see the ways that the pencil moves when writing letters and numbers. This letter construction activity explains more about this process. This letter building strategy, paired with other forms of multi-sensory handwriting and teaching letters in groups based on the ways the pencil moves can make a big impact.

Addressing some of the other co-existing issues discussed in this article can be a start.

Teach letters by writing on a carpet square with chalk.

3. Address the motor planning in handwriting necessary for letter and number formation. Strategies that develop motor planning skills utilizing multi-sensory approaches can help with letter reversal.

With handwriting practice of letters with visual, auditory, and kinesthetic sensory channels at the same time, the weaker channel may be reinforced (Berninger, 2000).

Multi-sensory letter reversal strategies include:

Use writing in shaving cream or on a shaving cream sensory bag
Use sensory writing trays to practice letter formation
Use sandpaper to work on letter formation
Practice number and letter formation with chalk and carpet squares
Other letter formation strategies can help with letter formation through multi-sensory means.

4. Work on visual perception with toys and games, and activities to address specific visual perceptual skills or visual motor skills.

5. Use cursive writing in some cases. Here are creative ways to teach cursive and our entire cursive writing series.

6. Gain a better understanding of visual processing and all of the “pieces” of the vision puzzle that play into letter reversal and other concerns by joining thousands of other therapists, teachers, and professionals in the Visual Processing Lab.

7. Use this Vision Screening Tool to identify and address specific vision concerns such as letter reversals.

8. Try some of these activities to address visual motor integration and eye-hand coordination.

9. Try rainbow writing.

Have concerns? Talk to your child’s teacher or occupational therapist to address your concerns.

Work on letter reversals and get a better understanding of vision, visual perception, and visual motor skills in the visual processing lab.

Understanding Letter Reversals in Young Children

Letter reversals are common in young children as they begin learning the letters of the alphabet. During early writing development, children are still building an understanding of directionality, or the ability to understand left-to-right orientation and the correct direction of the letters. Because of this, it is typical to see reversed letters, especially in preschool and kindergarten.

The most common letter reversal patterns include confusing letters like b/d, p/q, and sometimes n/u. These reversals occur because children are still learning how the parts of the letter are formed and how each letter is oriented on the page.

When Are Letter Reversals a Concern?

Letter reversals are developmentally appropriate in young kids through early elementary years. However, by around second grade, most children begin to demonstrate more consistent correct letter formation and fewer reversal errors.

If letter reversal issues continue beyond this stage or interfere with writing and reading, it may be helpful to provide extra practice and targeted support. Persistent letter confusion can impact fluency, confidence, and classroom performance.

Why Do Letter Reversals Happen?

Letter reversals are often related to developing visual and motor skills. Children are learning how to recognize the orientation of symbols and reproduce them through writing. This requires coordination between visual perception, motor planning, and memory.

Some children may also rely on verbal cues or physical prompts, such as using lips to sound out words while trying to recall the correct letter shape. Others may struggle with understanding spatial relationships, which impacts how they form letters like letter m or other multi-stroke letters.

Supporting Correct Letter Formation and Directionality

Helping children develop correct letter formation and understanding the direction of the letters can reduce reversals over time. Clear instruction and consistent modeling are key.

Strategies include:

Teaching letters using consistent starting points
Using visual cues to reinforce directionality
Breaking down the parts of the letter into simple steps
Practicing letters in a multisensory way

Providing strong visuals (such as arrows, starting dots, and highlighted lines), can help children understand how letters are formed and improve accuracy.

Letter Reversal Strategies for the Classroom

In the classroom, teachers can support students by embedding handwriting instruction into daily routines. This includes modeling letter formation, providing guided practice, and offering structured opportunities for repetition.

Helpful strategies include:

Posting visual alphabet charts with directional cues
Using consistent handwriting programs for instruction
Offering small group support for students with letter reversal issues
Providing extra practice opportunities during centers or writing time

Consistency across instruction helps children build automaticity and reduce errors over time.

Activities to Reduce Letter Confusion

Hands-on activities can support children who experience letter confusion. These activities strengthen memory and reinforce correct patterns.

Try:

Tracing letters with finger paths
Writing letters in sand, shaving cream, or play dough
Matching letters with similar shapes and discussing differences
Practicing frequently reversed letters in short sessions

Additional Information for Parents and Educators

It is important to remember that letter reversals are a normal part of development for many young children. With time, practice, and supportive instruction, most children naturally outgrow these patterns.

If concerns persist, additional support from an occupational therapist can help address underlying skills such as visual perception, motor planning, and fine motor coordination.

Providing consistent guidance, clear visuals, and opportunities for practice can help children gain confidence and improve their writing skills over time.

Contributor: Kaylee is a pediatric occupational therapist with a bachelors in Health Science from Syracuse University at Utica College, and a Masters in Occupational Therapy from Utica College. Kaylee has been working with children with special needs for 8 years, and practicing occupational therapy for 4 years, primarily in a private clinic, but has home health experience as well. Kaylee has a passion for working with the areas of feeding, visual development, and motor integration.

DIY Light Box for Tracing

March 17, 2026March 17, 2026 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Child tracing letters with a pen on a light table. Text reads DIY light table for tracing

This DIY light box for tracing is an easy light box we put together in minutes. All you need is an under the bed storage container and a string of lights to make a tracing tool that kids will love. There are benefits to tracing and this tool is a fun way to build fine motor skills and visual motor skills as a visual motor skill leading to better handwriting.

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases.

DIY Light Box for Kids

A DIY light box is a simple and effective tool that can be used for learning, play, and creativity. Light boxes provide a bright surface that makes it easier to see lines, shapes, and images for tracing or visual exploration. You can easily create a light box at home using materials like a plastic storage bin, LED lights, and a translucent lid.

This type of setup is especially helpful for kids because it makes activities more engaging and visually clear. A homemade light box can be used for tracing, drawing, sensory play, and even early writing activities.

DIY Light Box for Tracing

A DIY light box for tracing is perfect for helping children practice handwriting, drawing, and visual motor skills. The light shining through the surface allows kids to clearly see letters, shapes, or pictures placed underneath a sheet of paper.

This makes it easier for children to trace lines accurately, which supports motor planning and control. A DIY tracing box can be used for tracing alphabet letters, numbers, shapes, and simple drawings. It is a great tool for kids who are just beginning to learn how to write or who need extra visual support.

Sensory Light Box and Tracing Table Ideas

A sensory light box adds an extra layer of engagement by combining visual input with hands-on exploration. Kids can place different materials on the light surface, such as colored shapes, beads, or translucent objects, to explore how light changes the appearance of items.

You can also use your light box as a tracing table by placing worksheets or drawings underneath paper. This creates a bright, inviting workspace that encourages focus and creativity. Sensory light boxes are especially helpful for children who benefit from visual and tactile learning experiences.

Can You Make Your Own Light Box?

Yes, you can absolutely make your own light box at home with simple materials. Many DIY versions use:

A clear or translucent storage bin
LED strip lights or push lights. You can also use a tablet or studio lights (a video ring light found at many stores)
Wax paper or parchment paper (to diffuse light)
A flat surface lid

By placing lights inside the bin and covering the top with a translucent surface, you can create an affordable and functional light box. This DIY option works well for home use, classrooms, or therapy settings.

Can I Use My iPad as a Light Box?

Yes, an iPad or tablet can be used as a simple light box alternative. By increasing the brightness and displaying a white screen, the tablet can provide enough light for basic tracing activities.

However, there are some limitations. Tablets are smaller than most light boxes and may not provide as much working space. They are also more delicate, so supervision is important. A tablet can be a convenient option for quick tracing tasks, while a DIY light box offers a larger and more durable surface for regular use.

Reduce glare by upping the brightness when placing the tablet inside the plastic bin.

Specific Tracing Activity Ideas

Using a DIY light box for tracing opens up many opportunities for learning and skill development. Here are some beginner-friendly tracing ideas that parents, teachers, and therapists can start using right away:

Letter Tracing

Place alphabet worksheets under paper and have children trace uppercase and lowercase letters. This supports handwriting development and letter recognition.

Shape Tracing

Use simple shapes like circles, squares, triangles, and stars. This helps build pre-writing skills and visual motor coordination.

Name Tracing

Write a child’s name in large letters and have them trace over it. This is a motivating way to practice writing.

Picture Tracing

Trace simple pictures such as animals, vehicles, or objects. This supports creativity and drawing skills. Make sure you use white paper to see the objects.

Line and Pattern Tracing

Use straight lines, zig-zags, curves, and waves to build control and precision needed for writing.

Number Tracing

Practice forming numbers by tracing over large, clear models.

Themed Tracing Pages

Create seasonal or themed tracing sheets (weather, holidays, animals) to keep activities engaging.

Why Use a DIY Tracing Box?

A DIY tracing box makes learning more interactive and accessible. The light helps children see lines more clearly, which can reduce frustration and improve accuracy. This tool supports fine motor skills, visual tracking, and hand-eye coordination while making writing practice feel more like play.

DIY light box for tracing

A light box is a fun activity, and one you see in preschool classrooms, as it’s intended for hands-on play and exploring the senses. But did you know there are many benefits to using a light box for tracing (and other exploring play)?

Visual motor skills
Fine motor skills
Spatial awareness
Fine motor STEM (constructing, engineering, exploring how objects fit together, creating patterns, creating art (STEAM)
fine motor math skills (shapes, patterns, size awareness)
Sensory play
Bilateral coordination
Crossing midline
Visual perceptual skills
MORE!

How to Make a DIY Light Table for Tracing

This DIY Light Box was something I’ve seen around Pinterest and have wanted to try for a while…Once we had our Christmas lights outside, I thought we would definitely be doing this project after we pulled all of the lights back in. So, after we brought the Christmas lights in from the outside bushes, this was easy to put together for a cold evening’s play!

You need just two items to make a DIY light table:

(Amazon affiliate links)

Strand of white Christmas lights
Clear, plastic under-the-bed storage bin

Important: The under the bed storage bin needs to be made of clear plastic or have just a slight opaque color to the plastic. Also, the top should be smooth. Many storage bins have textured surface or a white surface. The flat, smooth lid is important for sensory play as well as tracing with paper on the DIY light table. This brand (affiliate link) is a good one to use.

Instructions to make a DIY light box:

Plug in the lights.
Place them into the bin.
Either cut a hole in the base of the bin for the lights to go through or cut a small notch into the lid so the strand of lights can go under the lid.

To make this homemade light box safer and not use plug in lights, you can use battery operated button lights (affiliate link) inside the storage bin. Or, there are many battery operated LED lights available now too. These are a great idea because many of them have a color-changing capability and can be operated from an app on your phone.

IMPORTANT: This homemade light box project should always be done under the supervision of an adult. The lights can get warm inside the bin and they should be unplugged periodically.

This is not a project that should be set up and forgotten about. The OT Toolbox is not responsible for any harm, injury, or situation caused by this activity. It is for educational purposes only. Always use caution and consider the environment and individualized situation, including with this activity. Your use of this idea is your acceptance of this disclaimer.

I put all of the (already bundled-up) strands of Christmas lights …seriously, this does not get much easier…into an under-the-bed storage bin, connected the strands, and plugged in!

DIY light box for tracing

A DIY light box made with Christmas lights

Once you put the top on, it is perfect for tracing pictures!

Tracing pictures on a light table

This is so great for new (or seasoned) hand-writers. They are working on pencil control, line awareness, hand-eye coordination…and end up with a super cool horse picture they can be proud of!

Use printable coloring pages and encourage bilateral coordination to hold the paper down. You can modify the activity by taping the coloring page onto the plastic bin lid.

Big Sister LOOOOVED doing this! And, I have to say, that she was doing the tracing thing for so long, that we had to turn the lights off because the bin was getting warm.

Other ways to use a DIY Light Table

We went around the house looking for cool things to place on top of the bin. Magnetic letters looked really neat with the light glowing through…Baby Girl had a lot of fun playing with this.

You can add many different items onto the DIY light table:

Magnetic letters (the light shines through them slightly)
Sand for a tracing table- We cover how to use a sand writing tray in another blog post and all the benefits of tracing in a sensory medium. With the lights under the tracing area, this adds another multisensory component to the learning.
Shapes (Magnatiles would work well)
Feathers
Coins
Blocks
A marble run

What a great learning tool…Shapes:

Letter Identification, spelling words:

Color and sensory discrimination:

…All in a new and fun manner! We had a lot of fun with this, but have since put our Christmas lights back up into the attic. We will be sure to do this one again next year, once the lights come back out again 🙂

Please: if you do make one of these light boxes, keep an adult eye on it, as the box did warm up…not to burning warmth, but I would worry about the lights becoming over heated. This is NOT something that kids should play with unsupervised!

Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.

Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

Letters Fine Motor Kit — Summer Fine Motor Kit

Kit de motricidad fina de verano — Summer Fine Motor Kit

Or, grab one of our themed Fine Motor Kits to target skills with fun themes:

Want access to all of these kits…and more being added each month? Join The OT Toolbox Member’s Club!

Pencil Grasp Development

March 3, 2026March 3, 2026 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Pencil grasp development is a common concern for many parents, teachers, and therapists. So often, we see children holding a pencil with all of their fingers wrapped around the pencil, or very awkward pencil grips and wonder what is a typical pencil grasp. But, did you know that children typically progress through pencil grasp development in a predictable pattern? It’s true! Let’s talk pencil grasp.

First, when it comes to writing with a pencil, there are a few things that therapists want parents to know about pencil grasp.

Secondly, it’s important to note that grasp development, while it can be predictable, can also vary in timing. And when grasp doesn’t follow the progression listed below…it can be ok! In fact, a functional pencil grasp is perfectly fine for children.

Pencil Grasp Development

Grasp development follows three main categories: primitive grasps, transitional grasps, and mature grasps.

Primitive Pencil Grasps

In this beginning pencil grasp, the whole arm moves the pencil. These grasps include two specific grips which are described below:

Palmer Supinate Grasp (a whole hand grasp)
Digital Pronate Grasp

1. Whole Hand Grasp/Palmer Supinate Grasp- (Typically seen between 12 months-1.5 years) Child holds the crayon with their whole hand, with the writing end of the crayon sticking out near their pinkie side of the hand. It looks like they are holding a paint stirrer or potato masher.

2. Digital Pronate Grasp/ Pronated Wrist Grasp- (2-3 years) Crayon is held in the hand so the tip of the crayon (or the drawing end) is held on the thumb side of the hand.

Transitional Pencil Grasps

In the transitional pencil grasp stage, the child’s forearm and/or wrist moves the pencil.

Transitional Pencil Grasps include:

Quadrupod grasp
Static Tripod grasp
Other grasp patterns

1. Quadrupod Grasp, or Four Fingered Grasp- (3-4 years)- Crayon is held between their thumb, and tips of the pointer finger, middle finger, and ring finger. As the child progresses, these four fingers may pull down to the tip of the finger into a quadrupod grasp.

Static tripod pencil grasp is a mature pencil grasp pattern

2. Static Tripod Grasp- (3.5-4 years)- Child holds the writing utensil with the thumb, pointer finger, and rests the utensil on the last joint of the middle finger. The ring finger and pinkie fingers are tucked into the palm of the hand.

3. Other grasp patterns- There can be many variations of grasp patterns that occur in the transitional stage, marked by the use of the wrist or forearm to move the pencil.

Mature Pencil Grasps

In the mature pencil grasp stage, the child holds and maneuvers the pencil using mobility in the fingers or the hand.

Mature grasp patterns include:

Dynamic Tripod Grasp
Lateral Tripod Grasp
Dynamic Quadrupod Grasp
Lateral Quadrupod Grasp

Dynamic tripod pencil grasp is a mature pencil grasp

1. Dynamic Tripod Grasp- (4-6/7 years) Thumb and pointer finger hold the pencil as it rests on the last joint of the middle finger. Pencil movements occur via manipulation of the fingers and hand. Note that a true dynamic tripod grasp may not be established up until around 14 years of age.

2. Lateral Tripod Grasp- Thumb is pressed in against the pencil (or adducted) to hold the pencil against the side of the pointer finger. The tip of the thumb may bend over (or flex) over the pencil in a “wrapped” position. This grasp is sometimes called a thumb wrap grasp because the thumb is not involved with the distal movement of the pencil. Distal mobility occurs, but it is the index and middle fingers manipulating the pencil.

3. Dynamic Quadrupod Grasp- Grasp is similar to the dynamic tripod grasp, but opposition includes the thumb, pointer finger, middle finger on the pencil shaft.

4. Lateral Quadrupod Grasp- Grasp is similar to the lateral tripod grasp, with its thumb wrapped positioning of the thumb, but uses the pointer, middle, and ring fingers are on the pencil shaft and manipulate the pencil.

Quadrupod Grasp

One thing that is important to mention is the quadrupod grasp. You might have noticed this term was mentioned a few times above, and in difference areas of development through the progression of pencil grasp development.

The quadrupod grasp is considered a four finger grasp, in which four fingers (thumb, pointer finger, middle finger, ring finger) are used to hold the pencil. Quadrupod grasp progresses from a static form to a dynamic form where there is fluid motion and repositioning in the joints of the hands.

Quadrupod Grasp- If the thumb opposes the pointer finger, middle finger, and ring finger this may be called a quadrupod grasp. A quadrupod grasp can also occur with the pencil resting on the side of the ring finger.

The quadrupod stage is an important part of grasp development as the fingers move into a dynamic position with pronation and extension of the wrist. However, don’t get stuck on a quadropod grasp if this type of grip is used with older children or if students are established with their quadrupod grasp!

Quadrupod grasp or Tripod Grasp?

Research tells us that the quadrupod grasp is a very functional grip and the use of one extra finger (as opposed to the traditional sense of a tripod grasp) is actually very functional in written work.

Some may say that the quadrupod grasp is more restrictive than the tripod grasp, however that extra stability can actually promote more mobility in the pencil and be used in very efficient and effective handwriting.

When the child that the uses a quadrupod grp on the pencil is forced to use a tripod grasp, you may see a decrease in written work legibility due to decreased stability. The arches of the hands may need to compensate for strength and dexterity in the fingers and that precise placement that the ring finger adds to the shaft of the pencil just isn’t as targeted with the arches of the hand and the stability offered through the ulnar side of the hand. For those who have the stability in the ulnar side and within the arches or intrinsic muscles, a tripod grasp can be more precise and lead to more refined pencil motions.

So you can see that it all is up to each individual when it comes to forcing a student to move from quadrupod to tripod. It just may not make sense to do so for some…and that’s ok and very functional!

Other Functional Pencil Grasps

There are other grasps that can be considered “functional” in which the child holds the pencil differently than described here, but can also write in an efficient manner.

These can include (but not be limited to) a thumb wrap grasp, thumb tuck grasp, inter-digital brace grasp, or a finger-wrap grasp.

Pencil Grasp Development and Fine Motor Skills

Pencil grasp develops gradually as part of overall fine motor development. In the earliest stages of pencil grasp development, a toddler typically uses a palmar grasp, wrapping the whole hand around a crayon or marker.

At this stage, movement comes mostly from the shoulder and elbow, and the child’s hands are focused on exploring rather than precision. When a toddler begins to scribble, the goal is not neatness but sensory feedback and control of large movements. These early scribbles lay the foundation for later fine motor skills.

As children gain strength and coordination, finger dexterity and distal coordination progresses. Instead of relying primarily on the elbow and shoulder, the child starts to move the tool using the wrist and eventually the fingertips. In occupational therapy, we like to say proximal stability before distal mobility.

This shift allows greater control over lines and shapes.

This is where we see grasp patterns really start to emerge.

During this stage, you may see variations such as a quadruped grasp, where four fingers help stabilize the marker or pen. The child’s hands are learning to coordinate small muscles, and core strength also plays a role in providing a stable base for refined hand control.

Over time, children typically progress toward a 3-finger grasp, sometimes referred to as a tripod grasp. In this more mature pattern, the writing tool is held between the thumb and index fingers, resting on the middle finger. The tips of their fingers guide the movement rather than the whole arm. This allows for precise control, endurance, and efficient letter formation. The fingertips become responsible for controlled, isolated movements rather than broad arm swings.

When Should Kids Use a Pencil?

Here’s how I respond to that question. Try to hold off on pencil and paper activities (worksheets) until kindergarten. When kids are handed a pencil or pen too soon, that’s when we see primitive grasps become “stuck”.

This happens in preschools where kids are tracing and writing on worksheets. Instead, use PLAY! We have a bunch ideas for fine motor activities using play that should come before pencils.

Children begin holding crayons or markers as toddlers, but how they hold them changes over time. Around age 2 to 3, children typically use a whole-hand or palmar grasp. By age 4 to 5, many children are developing more refined finger-based grasps. A functional 3-finger grasp often emerges between 5 and 6 years of age. Development is gradual, and there is a wide range of typical. It’s much better to use crayons in coloring to progress through these stages rather than a pencil. The crayon provides a heavier, more resistive feedback and strengthens the fingers, hands, and arches of the hands. Arch development is HUGE in a functional pencil grasp!

At what age should a child use a pencil grip?

One question we get a lot as pediatric OTs is when kids should add a pencil grip to their pencil.

Most children do not need a pencil grip in the preschool years. Pencil grips are typically considered when a child is school-aged, usually around 5 to 7 years old, and showing signs of fatigue, discomfort, or inefficient grasp patterns during writing tasks. Before that age, hands are still developing strength, coordination, and control. For younger children, it is more important to build fine motor skills than to add adaptive tools too early. It’s most important to work on the fine motor skills needed for strength and coordination to manage and manipulate the pencil. Try play dough, coloring, playing with beads, puzzles, tearing paper…SO many fun fine motor activities help with manipulating a pencil.

Tips to Help with Pencil Grasp Development

Providing opportunities for practice on a vertical surface, such as at an easel, can support this development. Writing or drawing on a vertical surface encourages wrist extension and strengthens the muscles needed for refined finger movements.

Using tools like a marker or pen in short, engaging tasks helps children build coordination and confidence. Activities that promote fine motor skills, along with attention to posture and core strength, support the natural progression through the stages of pencil grasp development.

Ultimately, pencil grasp is not just about how a child holds a pen. It reflects the integration of fine motor development, hand strength, coordination, and stability.

Supporting the child’s hands through purposeful play and developmentally appropriate expectations allows grasp patterns to mature in a way that promotes comfort, endurance, and functional writing skills.

One tool we love is the Pencil Grasp Bundle.

How to help with pencil Grasp

Want to know more about pencil grasp progression, development, and strategies to use to help children build a strong, efficient, and functional pencil grasp? It’s all in the Pencil Grasp Bundle!

The Pencil Grasp Bundle is for those struggling to help students with carryover of skills. It’s designed to make pencil grasp practice meaningful and motivating. The Pencil Grasp Bundle is 16 pencil grasp resources, guides, worksheet sets, and tools.

Pencil Grasp Success Was Never Easier.

It can be a real struggle to help kids address tricky pencil grasps.
It is frustrating and difficult to weed through all of the information and pull out what will work for a child.
You struggle with kids who work on skills but can’t carryover handwriting and pencil grasp into the classroom.
Therapists may search for fresh ideas to address pencil grasp needs and wonder whether a grasp is considered functional or needs changing.
Therapists need pencil grasp screening and educational materials to address a huge influx of therapy referrals.
Parents wonder about development and skills.
Teachers will love the Centers activities to incorporate into learning to impact carryover of handwriting skills.

The Pencil Grasp Bundle includes 16 products and is valued at over $73. It’s bundled together and offered at just $24.

More pencil grasp help

Want to know how to fix a problem with pencil grasps? Need help knowing where to start when it comes to immature pencil grasps or a child hating to write because their hand hurts? The Pencil Grasp Challenge in open for you! In this free, 5 day email series, you’ll gain information, resources, specific activities designed to promote a functional, efficient pencil grasp.

The pencil grasp challenge is a free, 5 day mini course and challenge. During the course of five days, I’ll be teaching everything you need to know about the skills that make up a functional pencil grasp. You’ll learn what’s going on behind the inefficient and just plain terrible pencil grasps you see everyday in the classroom, clinic, or home. Along with loads of information, you’ll gain quick, daily activities that you can do today with a kiddo you know and love. These are easy activities that use items you probably already have in your home right now.

Besides learning and gaining a handful (pun intended) of fun ideas to make quick wins in pencil grasp work, you’ll gain:

5 days of information related to pencil grasp, so you know how to help kids fix an immature pencil grasp.
Specific activities designed to build a functional pencil grasp.
Free printable handouts that you can use to share with your team or with a parent/fellow teachers.
You’ll get access to printable challenge sheets, and a few other fun surprises.
And, possibly the best of all, you’ll get access to a secret challengers Facebook group, where you can share wins, chat about all things pencil grasp, and join a community of other therapists, parents and teachers working on pencil grasp issues.

Click here to join the Pencil Grasp Challenge .

Sensory Handwriting Backyard Summer Camp

April 23, 2025April 23, 2025 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Have you ever thought about running a handwriting tutor session or a Summer handwriting camp? A handwriting camp is a great way to support the Summer slide when it comes to handwriting skills, or work on a few handwriting activities in fun and engaging ways over the summer months. For school based OT practitioners, this is a great summer work opportunity too!

If you’ve ever had the idea to run some kind of handwriting tutoring sessions over the summer, but didn’t know how to get started with this, you’re in the right place. But, before we jump into HOW to actually do this, be sure to check out the resource we’ve added to our shop: Create Your Own Summer Camp Side-Business. This is a printable workbook that walks you through every step of setting up a paid Summer Camp. You can use this process for year-round paid playgroups, handwriting tutoring, or any themed group.

The Summer Camp & Tutoring Side Business Workbook gives you everything you need to plan, price, and launch your own skill-based program, perfect for OTs, PTs, and SLPs who want to use their expertise in a fun, flexible way.

How to Run a Summer Handwriting Camp

There are a lot of different ways you could go about this…I have personally run handwriting sessions in different ways. In this blog post, we’ll cover a few different ideas. Some might work better for you!

Handwriting tutoring- Reach out to your current caseload (the ones that may benefit) with the option to enroll in cash based tutoring sessions. This is just like summer tutoring that teachers offer. You may want to consider offering this option to a counselor in the school that has a list of teachers that offer tutoring because parents ask for a list of tutors all the time. Why shouldn’t your name be on that list too?
Run a summer camp. Set this up in a park, at a local rental space, or other location. Outdoor handwriting is a great idea for developing skills! You could incorporate kinesthetic learning activities and outdoor sensory activities.
Run sessions throughout the summer- This would be weeklong sessions (already outlined with specific activities in mind) and parents could sign up for one or more of the sessions.
Just offer summer handwriting activities– This could be in a camp style or even a backyard summer camp type of session.

Summer Handwriting Camp Ideas

Summer is a time of relaxation, lazy play, and freedom for kids. It can be a time of sliding backward in skills like handwriting, too. While it’s important to remain free of schedules over the summer and allow kids to just be kids, there can be a need for some kids to maintain skills to prevent a loss of skills.

These sensory handwriting activities are a fun way to incorporate the senses into handwriting practice, in a fun way. I’ve created sensory-based handwriting activities that can be used to create a DIY backyard summer camp at home.

Use these ideas to work on handwriting skills through the senses!

sensory summer camp at home idea for handwriting summer camp for kids using all of the senses to prevent the summer slide.

You’ll also be interested in our new Summer Occupational Therapy Activities Packet. It’s a collection of 14 items that guide summer programming at home, at school, and in therapy sessions. The summer activities bundle covers handwriting, visual perceptual skills and visual motor skills, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, regulation, and more.

You’ll find ideas to use in virtual therapy sessions and to send home as home activities that build skills and power development with a fun, summer theme. Kids will love the Summer Spot It! game, the puzzles, handouts, and movement activities. Therapists will love the teletherapy slide deck and the easy, ready-to-go activities to slot into OT sessions. The packet is only $10.00 and can be used over and over again for every student/client!

Grab the Summer Occupational Therapy Activities Packet HERE.

summer occupational therapy activities for kids

Tips to be a Handwriting Tutor

This post contains affiliate links.

Before beginning handwriting tutoring sessions, or a handwriting camp, you’ll want to create a few pieces of paperwork. Important papers such as disclaimers, waivers, and intake information can cover a few important issues as a handwriting tutor, handwriting coach, or handwriting camp.

Identify if you are using your therapy license or not? This is an important item to cover from the very start. Identify the scope of the handwriting tutoring sessions or camp sessions. If they are going to be considered under the scope of occupational therapy, there are certain considerations to be addressed. These are not to be considered therapy, unless you are actually doing an occupational therapy evaluation and creating a specific course of treatment. In these cases, fees for therapy or insurance can be collected, and you would operate under your license. Occupational therapy assistants would need to work under supervision of an occupational therapist. If the sessions would be operating without evaluation, assessment, and individualized interventions, then the scope of the sessions can occur under general tutoring or camp activities. In both situations, a disclaimer explaining these specifics should be created (next item).
Disclaimer- Create a disclaimer that covers the scope of the tutoring or camp sessions.
What will you cover in tutoring/handwriting camp? Identify the scope of tutoring content or handwriting summer camp content. Are you going to be covering letter formation? Simply handwriting practice? The importance of cursive writing? Cursive letter formation? Copying skills? Functional handwriting? Pencil grasp? Fine motor skills? Free writing?
Waiver- Create a waiver that covers liability and removes yourself from any liability issues as a tutor or camp creator. There are many waiver and liability templates available, or you can reach out to a local attorney.
Intake paperwork- Create paperwork for collecting information from parents. This should include name, contact information, special considerations such as allergies, emergency contact information, etc.
Handwriting Camp Plans- Create a plan for handwriting tutoring or handwriting camp sessions. See below for ideas for each handwriting camp session.
Collect money- Determine how you will be collect money to paid for tutoring sessions. You can set up a Venmo account. You can create an account and create a “product” that is listed as a service. For an average of $20/month, you can have a way to collect income, sales pages, and market to your list month after month.

Handwriting tutoring or Handwriting Camp Plans

After you’ve created the logistics of the camp or tutoring session, it’s important to come up with a plan for general tutoring or camp sessions. You can create a plan for the entire camp that covers several weeks so that you’ve got ideas Try these tips to keep handwriting summer camps fun and stress-free.

Identify what will be covered in the handwriting camp/handwriting tutoring.

Start by identifying what you’ll be covering in tutoring sessions or handwriting camp sessions. These are general topics and can be used with any student no matter the level (this is important if you are not going to be doing an evaluation and treatment plan and operating under your license).

Some topics for handwriting camps and handwriting tutoring sessions can include:

Letter formation camp
Letter reversals
Fine Motor Skills camp
Cursive writing skills camp
Copying skills camp
Free writing
Letter writing camp
Sensory motor skills play
Pencil grasp skills

You can also consider a theme for the camp or handwriting sessions. Some ideas include an outer space camp theme or a circus summer camp theme.

2. Next come up with a schedule for handwriting camp sessions or handwriting tutoring:

Start off sessions with movement, play, and activities that build skills through play. Below are some ideas for the schedule of a tutoring or handwriting camp session:

Use lots of movement breaks and brain break activities. Try to keep written work tasks as movement oriented as possible.
Start each mini-session with gross motor activities: crab walks, jumping jacks, heavy work, or vestibular games.
Move on to fine motor movement activities, incorporating proprioception, and dexterity tasks.
Proceed to handwriting activities, keeping them as fun and activity-based as possible. Incorporate several of the senses into written work, allowing the children to involve as many senses as possible in each mini-session. Limit written work activities to 15-20 minutes. You can use our free Handwriting printables and resources available on the website. See all of our Free Handwriting Resources HERE
Try using some handwriting games to keep the motor skill work fun and engaging.

Encourage 10 minutes of journal writing or letter writing.
Use these Summer Writing Lists for quick list writing that build handwriting skills
Finish with movement activities, using whole-body games like playing catch, batting a balloon, jumping rope, or kicking a ball.

Summer Handwriting Camp Ideas

When it comes to handwriting, the motor sensory systems have a HUGE input in terms of handwriting ability, legibility, and fluency.

START HERE for learning more about sensory processing and handwriting; This is everything you need to know about handwriting and sensory concerns.

I will be the first to admit: There are not too many kids out there who want to work on handwriting during their summer break. The trick to building or maintaining skills it to make it fun. Here are a bunch of ideas for motivating kids to write.

Once you’ve got some ideas to incorporating handwriting into summer days, you can try a few sensory strategies for practicing written work. Try the handwriting ideas below to making written work fun using the senses.

Tactile Sensory Handwriting Ideas:

Pressing Too Hard When Writing Proprioception Tips is the perfect post if you are looking for tips on writing with too much (or too little) pencil pressure.
Fizzy Dough Cursive Letters uses the sense of touch with tactile exploratory input with fizzy, sensory letter formation.
Sensory Letter Formation Work on letter formation using dish soap in this tactile and olfactory letter learning and writing activity.
Fidget tips and tools can be used for kids who are constantly fidgeting during writing activities.
Write in shaving cream on a plastic tablecloth.
Practice letters while writing in oobleck.
Use mess-free sensory bags.
Form letters in a sand tray, salt tray, sugar tray, cornmeal tray, or flour.
Write with wet chalk.

Auditory Sensory Handwriting Ideas:

Write in the air letters while singing.
Use Encourage singing or humming during written work.
Use headphones to block out sounds or to provide background noise.
Practice written work from an auditory source.
Take handwriting activities outdoors to the backyard, and notice birds chirping, cars, dogs barking, etc.
Minimize auditory distractions for other children.
Ask children to repeat the directions.
Use visual cues such as index cards with written directions.
Handwriting on Foam Craft Sticks and letters and coffee filters use the auditory sense when writing. Whisper, tell, yell, rhyme, or sing the letters as your child writes them.

Olfactory Sensory Handwriting Ideas:

Write in coffee grounds.
Write with a cinnamon stick in flour.
Form letters with glue and use scented bath salts to add texture.
Form letters with scented play dough.
Use scented markers.

Proprioception Handwriting Ideas:

Start with these ideas for understanding the basics of the proprioception sense and its impact on handwriting.
Write on a resistive surface.
Form letters with push pins on a lid.
Write with chalk on a driveway or rocks. Try rainbow writing with chalk.
Write while laying on a trampoline. TIP: Use a clipboard.
Use a therapy ball to sit on, lay on, and write on.
Practice letter formation and pencil pressure by lacing a sheet of paper over a foam computer mouse pad. If pressing too hard, the pencil point will poke through the paper.

A vibrating pen provides sensory feedback to the fingers and hand and helps to keep children focused on the task.
Practice handwriting by placing a sheet of paper over a piece of sandpaper. The resistance of the sandpaper is great heavy work for small muscles of the hand.
Practice Ghost Writing: Encourage the child to write very lightly on paper and then erase the words without leaving any marks. The adult can try to read the words after they’ve been erased. If the words are not able to be read, the writer wins the game.
This will provide the child with awareness and words for the way they are holding the pencil.
Wrap a bit of play dough or putty around the pencil as a grip. Encourage the child to hold the pencil with a grasp that does not press deeply into the dough. Encourage using a “just right” pressure.
Provide terms for they way they write. Encourage “just right” writing and not “too hard” or “too soft” marks.
Use a lead pencil to color in a small picture, using light gray, medium gray, and dark gray. Talk about how using different amounts of pressure changes the shade of gray.
Practice writing with a pen on thin paper surfaces such as napkins and tissue paper.

Vestibular Sensory Handwriting Ideas

Write while laying in the slide. Try using the slide as a writing surface while the child is lying on their belly. Try both head towards the top of the slide and head towards the bottom of the slide.
Try a wiggle seat cushion such as a balance disc or a wobble chair.
Try sitting in a rocking chair, using a clipboard to write on.

Gustatory Sensory Handwriting Ideas

Form letters with taste-safe play dough.
Use bread dough to form letters. Bake and eat.
Write in pudding.
Try taste-testing handwriting activities: Try practicing writing while the student is chewing gum, or sucking on hard candy. Other ideas include: chewing licorice, sour candy, chewy gummy candy, lollipops, or crunchy pretzels. These types of oral sensory input are organizing. With the children, see if they notice improved concentration and written work output with these types of oral sensations.

Visual Sensory Handwriting Ideas

Write with highlighters.
Write with a flashlight in a darkened room.
Write with sparklers in the evening. (Use glow sticks for a safer option.)
Make a DIY light box.

What do you think?

Have you thought about running an occupational therapy summer camp or a sensory summer camp? Maybe you’re thinking about targeting clients or just creating a group activity for non-clients as part of summer programming. Let me know if you’ve done any of the activities listed here. And, tell me…What are some awesome occupational therapy summer camp ideas you’ve had or sensory summer camp strategies that you’ve used?

Set up Your Own Summer Camp

What’s next? Actually taking the steps to create your own Summer side-gig! If you’re ready to take the leap and turn your camp idea into something real, the Summer Camp & Tutoring Side Business Workbook is your perfect next step. Created specifically for OT, PT, and SLP professionals, this printable guide walks you through everything you need to set up and run your own skill-based summer program. It walks you through everything you need to know about this process, from planning and pricing to registration forms, waivers, and activity templates.

Whether you’re thinking about a handwriting bootcamp, sensory playgroup, or life skills club, this workbook helps you put your ideas into action, on your schedule, with your expertise, and without the overwhelm.

This workbook was inspired by my own experience starting a sensory playgroup while juggling work and mom life. I built it on my own terms, brought my kids along, and created fun, meaningful experiences that supported real skill development, and made extra income while doing it.

Now it’s your turn! Check out the Summer Camp Guide Workbook here.

Inside the workbook, you’ll find:

Program planning worksheets
Budget and pricing calculator
Activity planners
Registration and intake forms
Legal/safety templates (like waivers)
Ideas for promotion, themes, and scheduling
…and everything you need to confidently launch a camp, playgroup, or tutoring program this summer.

Whether you want to run handwriting bootcamps, sensory skill groups, or one-on-one sessions, you don’t need a full course or new certification. You just need a starting point. This is it.

Grab the workbook here.

Want to take summer play to the next level? Be sure to grab your copy of the Summer OT Activities Bundle!

Toys to Improve Pencil Grasp

December 15, 2024December 12, 2024 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Have you ever used pencil grasp toys to support development of handwriting? Helping kids with pencil grasp can be a challenge, so using motivating and fun activities to support the underlying skill areas is essential. Today, we’re going over the best occupational therapy toys that target pencil grasp development. Pencil grasp toys to challenge precision, dexterity, endurance, separation of the sides of the hand, and other skills needed for a functional pencil grasp. All of this can happen through play using toys to support stronger hands by focusing on grasp pattern development through play!

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Recently, we shared fine motor toy ideas and then gross motor toys. Both of these areas are closely related to a functional pencil grasp, so be sure to check out those toy suggestions, too.

Pencil Grasp Toys

We love coming up with fun play and craft activities designed to work on the development of an efficient grasp. Being the season of gifting to others, we thought it would be fun to bring you our top recommended toys to work on tripod grasp, intrinsic muscle strength, rotation of the pencil while handwriting, and an open thumb web space.

Children who have difficulty with handwriting may completely HATE to work on letter formation and pencil grip. Why not gift them with a fun toy this holiday that will work on the developmental skills necessary to improve their grip on the pencil? Make the exercise fun as they PLAY their way to a better pencil grasp!

Handwriting is more than just pencil grasp! Manipulating a pencil to write letters and numbers has a lot to do with visual perceptual skills. You’ll find easy and fun ways to work on visual perceptual skills through play here.

You will also love these Games to Improve Pencil Grasp

Best Toys to Improve Pencil Grasp

Toys that will help improve pencil grasp

{Note: This post contains affiliate links.}

Toys That Improve Pencil Grasp

Coming up with this list, we thought about the skills needed for an appropriate pencil grasp and age-appropriate handwriting. This toy gift guide is broken down into toys that will help with different sets of problem areas when it comes to a poor pencil grasp.

Let’s take a closer look at toy suggestions for these areas:

Toys for Tripod Grasp
Toys for an Open Thumb Web Space
Toys for Hand Strength
Toys for Extended Wrist

Toys for Tripod Grasp

Tripod grasp: The most efficient way to hold the pencil when writing is with a dynamic tripod grasp. While not necessary…a functional grasp works, too…a tripod grasp is a term we’ve probably all heard described before. So WHAT is a tripod grasp?

A Tripod grasp starts with a nice round circle made with the thumb and index finger. The pencil is pinched with the tips of the thumb and index finger and held close to the point of the pencil. The pencil is resting on and assisted by the middle finger. The ring finger and pinky fingers are tucked into the palm. All movement should happen with the fingers and thumb. The wrist and arm should not move while writing, coloring, or drawing.

Often times, new pencil and crayon users will hold the writing utensil in a different way. You might see four fingers opposing the thumb to hold the pencil. You might see the pencil positioned in the knuckles between the index and middle fingers. Maybe they hold the pencil away from the tip where the lead is and instead hold it in the middle of the pencil shaft. There are SO many variations of awkward and inefficient pencil grasps. If your little hand writer is showing some version that affects their letter formation and pencil control, try a few of these fun toys…

A few toys that help to encourage a tripod grasp:

Light Brite: (affiliate link) Picking up and manipulating those little colored pegs encourage a tripod grasp. Pushing them through the paper and into the holes is a great resistive exercise…disguised as FUN!

We have this Lite Brite Flatscreen – Red (affiliate link) from Hasbro and love making pictures with the pegs! When the child holds the pegs in his hand, it’s a great way to encourage the ring finger and pinkie finger in a tucked position. Show your child how to pick up a handful of pegs and “squirrel them away” in their palm while they push one peg into the board. What a great fine motor exercise! Not to mention, the dots of the guide paper is a great visual motor activity…so important in handwriting!

Lacing Cards: (affiliate link) Lacing cards are a great way to encourage a tripod grasp. This set of Lacing Shapes (affiliate link) from Patch Products come in simple shapes with bold colors. The child must hold the tip of the string in a dynamic tripod grasp to push through the holes of the card. If your child has their thumb squashed up against their index finger while threading the cards, be sure to show them how to make a nice round circle for an easier time.

Peg Boards: (affiliate link) Grasping pegs encourage a tripod grasp especially while pushing them into the holes of a peg board. Here are homemade pegboard ideas and even a precision pegboard you can make using perler beads (see below).

This Lauri Tall-Stacker Pegs Building Set (affiliate link) from Lauri is great for building peg towers while learning colors and shapes.

Older kids might love Fusion Beads like the Perler Beads 6,000 Count Bucket-Multi Mix (affiliate link) from Perler.

Spike the Fine Motor Hedge Hog– (affiliate link) This fine motor toy builds a stronger tripod grasp, and when positioned appropriately, can place the wrist into an extended position, too. This helps to further refine precision movements for accuracy and dexterity. These are great skills to carry over to pencil control and pencil movements during handwriting tasks.

Learning Resources 3 Prong Tong– (affiliate link) This tong tool promotes a better grasp on objects…but only if the hand is positioned correctly. If you allow kids to just pick up the 3 prong tongs and start using them, they likely will position the tong into their hand with a gross grasp, or by using all of the fingers along the length of the prong. This can actually strengthen the wrong muscles, and promote an ineffective motor plan that becomes muscle memory when writing with a pencil.

When kids use these tongs, they should have their hand positioned almost under the tongs, as if it were a pencil. When used this way, the tongs can strengthen the intrinsic muscles and promote a tripod grasp. These 3 prong tongs can work well when used correctly, but be sure to work along side a child with this one.

Toys for Open Thumb Web Space

Sometimes you will see a child who is holding their pencil with a closed web space. This happens when the thumb web space is the area between the thumb and the index finger. If the thumb is squashed up against the side of their index finger, they are not able to manipulate the pencil with small movements. They might move their whole arm to make letters instead of just the hand. A closed web space is an inefficient way to grasp the pencil and will lead to poor handwriting. This type of positioning requires activities that strengthen and stabilize the thumb.

A few toys that help encourage an open web space:

Tweezer Games: Tweezer activities promote an open web space and stabilization of the thumb. This Avalanche Fruit Stand (affiliate link) from Learning Resources is a colorful way to encourage an open web space. The vertical surface is perfect for encouraging an extended wrist.

Bead Sets: (affiliate link) Stringing beads is a good way to encourage an open web space. The child must hold the bead and string between their thumb and index fingers. Collapsing of the thumb web space will happen when the child demonstrates weakness in the muscles of the thumb. Beading is a repetitive activity and promotes strength.

This Melissa & Doug Deluxe Wooden Stringing Beads with over 200 beads (affiliate link) from Melissa & Doug has over 200 beads in different colors and shapes, and even letters! You could even form sentences for the child to copy and practice their improved pencil grasp!

Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots: (affiliate link) Often times, a child will wrap their thumb around the index finger when they are writing with a pencil.. This indicates instability in the thumb and the muscles that allow for smooth pencil motions.

Pushing down on the buttons of the Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em ROBOTS Game (affiliate link) from Mattel really strengthens the muscles of the thumb and allows for more stability leading to an open web space and ultimately more fluid motions of the pencil in letter formation. Plus, this game is just plain old FUN for kids of all ages!

Toys for Hand Strength

Hand Strength: If a child has weakness in their hands, they may complain that their hand is tired when they write or color. Then, to compensate for muscle fatigue, they resort to an inefficient hand grasp. They may grip the pencil with four fingers or with their whole palm. many times, a child will start off with a nice tripod grasp and then switch to a less efficient grasp…or even switch hands! Do they complain that their hand is tired or that it hurts? These kiddos need to work on hand strength. To allow for increased endurance when writing and coloring, this child would benefit from strengthening exercises.

A few toys that help encourage hand strength:

Pop Beads: (affiliate link) Pushing pop beads together is a perfect way to strengthen the intrinsic muscles of the hands including the arches of the hands.

Pop beads are such a fun toy that can be used to make patterns, different lengths, bracelets, necklaces, and even shapes. This Pop Beads (affiliate link) from ConstructivePlaythings are unique in their shape, color, sizes, and textures. A twist on the classic bead, this set will excite girls and boys of all ages. Be sure to shop for size-appropriate beads for your child’s hands.

Play-Doh: (affiliate link) Play dough is the ultimate open-ended toy for hand strengthening. There are unlimited ways to play all the while encouraging hand development.

We love this Play-Doh 24-Pack of Colors(affiliate link) for lots of creative play! Hide coins, beans, or beads in the dough and allow the child to find the items. Roll small balls of dough using just the thumb, index, and middle fingers.

Roll a play dough snake with the dough and have the child pinch the dough between their thumb and index finger. Just get creative and make some things with your play dough. Most of all, have fun!

Tissue Paper Art: (affiliate link) There is possible no better art project for hand strengthening than tissue paper art! Crumbling little bits of tissue paper is perfect for strengthening the small muscles of the hand.

Encourage your child to use just their finger tips to crumble the bits of tissue paper rather than two hands to crumble. This ALEX® Toys – Early Learning Tissue Paper Art -Little Hands 521W (affiliate link) from Alex Toys is bold, colorful and just plain fun art! Even better for the intrinsic muscles of the hands is tearing bits of paper before crumbling.

Squeeze Toys:(affiliate link) a gross grasp is using the whole hand to squeeze and flex into a grip.

What a great way to strengthen the muscles of the hands! This Lobster Claw Catcher (affiliate link) from is a fun way to encourage hand strength and endurance for coloring and writing.

Geoboard Activities– (affiliate link) Using a geoboard supports hand strength to enable endurance in handwriting. Manipulating the rubber bands promotes finger isolation, open thumb web-space, and and extended wrist.

Learning Resources Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set Toy– (affiliate link) This set of fine motor tools includes an eye-dropper, scissor scoops, and tongs. The sensory bin scoops and tools support hand strength through manipulating small objects or water.

These tools are a great way to strengthen the exact muscles needed for a functional pencil grasp.

Toys for Extended Wrist

Extended Wrist: An Extended wrist is a slightly bent back wrist. When a child’s hand is bent forward toward the palm, they typically exhibit inefficient grasp on the pencil and weakness in the hand. A slight bend in the wrist towards the back of the hand (bent up toward the ceiling when writing) allows for better movement and flow of the fingers when forming letters. Often times a child with a poor handwriting demonstrates a “hooked wrist” or a flat wrist and it leads back to inefficient control of the pencil and messy handwriting.

A few toys that help encourage an Extended Wrist:

Easel: (affiliate link) An easel can be used in so many ways while encouraging an extended wrist. Paint, draw, color, or write on the elevated surface. We love taping contact paper to our easel and sticking all kinds of craft supplies.

This really encourages an extended wrist while using a tripod grasp or tip to tip grasp to manipulate little items (think tissue paper, sequins, foil squares…the possibilities are endless!) This Easel (affiliate link) is great for extended wrist activities. And, it even folds down to reveal a desk surface. It’s the perfect gift to promote improved handwriting!

Ker Plunk: (affiliate link) The Ker Plunk Game (affiliate link) from Mattel encourages an extended wrist as the child pushes the sticks into the holes of the game. They are encouraged to use a tripod grasp to hold the sticks as well. Rotating the sticks encourages two types of in-hand manipulation.

Take this game a step further in handwriting exercise for strengthening and play laying down on the floor, propped up on your elbows. Getting down on the floor to play will activate the large muscles of the back and the shoulder girdle to improve precision in pencil grasp.

Montessori Boards-(affiliate link) Precision and dexterity activities are needed for pencil grasp and when you add in dexterity tasks and manipulation of tongs, spoons, or tweezers to move and place objects, it’s a win-win.

This precision Montessori board (affiliate link) builds the skills needed for pencil grasp: a stabile wrist, in-hand manipulation, open thumb web space, and dexterity.

Best toys and ideas to help kids improve their pencil grasp

Looking for a few activities to improve handwriting skills? Check out our round-up of the best handwriting activities from our blog and these other toy suggestions:

More Therapy Toy Ideas

Want to find more therapy recommended toys to help kids develop specific skills? Check out the list of skill areas below.

Printable List of Toys for Pencil Grasp

Want a printable copy of our therapist-recommended toys to support pencil grasp?

As therapy professionals, we LOVE to recommend therapy toys that build skills! This toy list is done for you so you don’t need to recreate the wheel.

Your therapy caseload will love these PENCIL GRASP toy recommendations. (There’s space on this handout for you to write in your own toy suggestions, to meet the client’s individual needs, too!)

Enter your email address into the form below. The OT Toolbox Member’s Club Members can access this handout inside the dashboard, under Educational Handouts. Just be sure to log into your account, first!

Visual Tracking Tips and Tools for Treatment

December 15, 2024December 9, 2024 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Here we are covering all things visual tracking, including what visual tracking means, how to improve visual tracking skills, and visual tracking toys to support development of this visual processing skill.

Amazon affiliate links are included in this blog post. As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Visual Tracking toys and tools to improve visual fixation, visual tracking, visual saccades, in handwriting, reading, and so many functional daily tasks and skills in kids.

What is Visual Tracking

Visual tracking is typically defined as the ability to efficiently move the eyes from left to right (or right to left, up and down, and circular motions) OR focusing on an object as it moves across a person’s visual field.

This skill is important for almost all daily activities, including reading, writing, cutting with scissors, drawing, and playing. According to typical development of visual processing, the ability to visually track objects emerges in children around the age of five.

Reading a paragraph without losing their place, copying a list of homework from the chalkboard, misalignment of vertical and horizontal numbers in math problems, confusion in interpreting written direction, mixing up left/right, persistent letter reversals…Does any of this sound familiar? It’s all visual tracking!

Vision and visual tracking are tasks that happen without us even realizing. The brain and it’s jobs is an amazing thing and our eyes are moving, tracking, scanning, focusing, pursuing, and accommodating without us even realizing. There are many ways to work on visual perception in playful and creative ways.

Related is the visual figure ground piece, which allows us to pull visual information from a busy background, and track that visual input.

Visual Tracking Exercises

Using visual tracking exercises like the one described below can be a powerful way to use eye exercises to improve vision in kids. These are the visual skills needed not for visual acuity, but rather, those unseen visual problems that impact visual processing skills.

Visual tracking exercises can include vision therapy activities that improve areas such as visual saccades or smooth visual pursuit.

Difficulties in Visual Tracking

You might see problems with these tasks if a child has difficulty with visual tracking:

Losing place when reading. Re-reads or skips words or lines.
Omits, substitutes, repeats, or confuses similar words when reading.
Must use finger to keep place when reading.
Poor reading comprehension.
Short attention span.
Difficulty comprehending or remembering what is read.
Confusion with interpreting or following written directions.
Writing on a slant, up or down hill, spacing letters and words irregularly.
Confusion with left/right directions.
Persistent reversals of letters (b, d, p, q) when naming letters.
Reverses letters when writing (persistent reversals after 2nd grade.)
Errors when copying from a chalkboard or book to paper.
Misalignment of horizontal and vertical series’ of numbers in math problems.

Also related to visual tracking and very similar while being involved in many of these problem areas, is visual scanning.

It is important to note that not all of these difficulties indicate a true visual tracking and or visual scanning problem. For example, many children demonstrate poor reading comprehension and may show a short attention span while not having visual scanning problems.

All children should be evaluated by a pediatric physician, behavioral optometrist, and occupational therapist to determine true visual processing and visual tracking or visual scanning deficits. These recommendations are meant to be a resource.

Visual Tracking Activities

Today, I’m sharing an easy visual tracking activity that will help kids with many functional difficulties. This post is part of our new series where we are sharing 31 days of Occupational Therapy using mostly free or inexpensive materials.

Today’s activity should cost you at most $2 unless you already have these items in your craft cupboard or office supplies. Add this activity to your treatment bag for multiple activities. Read on:

Amazon affiliate links below.

This Visual tracking activity is easy to set up. Gather recycled bottle caps. I used round dot labels (affiliate link) from our office supplies to color the inside of each cap. You could also use a marker or paint to color the bottle caps. Use what you’ve got on hand to make this treatment activity free or almost free! Next, gather matching crafting pom poms. (affiliate link) These can be found at the dollar store for and inexpensive treatment item.

Skills Related to Visual Tracking

It’s important to mention that there are several skills related to visual tracking. These sub-areas should be identified as a piece of the overall puzzle. Areas related to visual tracking play a role in the eyes ability to fixate on an object and follow it as it moves. These skills include:

Visual fixation
Peripheral tracking
Visual pursuit

Visual Fixation Activity: (Maintaining vision on an item in the visual field) Work one eye at a time.

Have your child close one eye and place a colored crafting pom pom onto a matching bottle cap. They need to use one hand to place the pom pom into the corresponding bottle cap and not move bottle caps around on the table.
After the child has filled all of the bottle caps using one eye, repeat the task with the other eye.
Then complete the activity using both eyes.
You can also do this activity by placing the label dots on a paper. Match the bottle caps onto the dots.

Visual Stare Activity (the amount of time the eyes can fixate on an object without eye movements)

Hold up one bottle cap on your nose.
Ask your child to sit about 18 inches from you and stare at the bottle cap. Note their eye movements as they stare.
Keep track of time that the child can stare at the target without visual saccades (eye movements).

Peripheral Tracking Activity (visually tracking from the peripheral visual fields)

Arrange the bottle caps on the table.
Place a pom pom in the center of the table, with the bottle caps all around it.
Ask your child to stare at the pom pom. While keeping their head still and only moving their eyes, ask them to quickly find a bottle cap with the same color.
Ask them to scan to another bottle cap of the same color until they’ve found all of the caps with that color.
You can add a level to this task by writing letters or numbers in the bottle caps and asking the child to find letters in order or numbers in order.

Visual Tracking Pursuit Activity (watching and tracking a moving object)

Set one bottle cap on the right side of the table.
Place another at the left side.
The adult should blow a crafting pom pom from the right to the left and ask the child to follow the pom with his eyes, without moving their head.
Repeat by blowing the pom pom from the left to the right, front to back, and back to front in front of the child.

Visual Tracking Tracing Lines (Watching a pencil line as it is formed, and following the line with eye-hand coordination to trace with a pencil or marker)

Set one vertical row of bottle cap on the left side of the child.
Place another vertical row on the right side.
The adult should draw a line from one bottle cap on the left side to a matching bottle cap on the right side.
Instruct the child to follow the pencil as you draw. Nest, trace the line with your finger.
Ask the child to trace the line with their finger.
They can then trace the lines with a pencil or marker.

More eye tracking Strategies

Complete mazes
Do puzzles.
Use a newspaper or magazine article. Ask your child to highlight all of the letter “a’s”.
Draw or paint pictures.
Place a marble in a pie pan. Rotate the pan around and watch the ball as it rolls. Don’t move your head, only your eyes!
Find as many things shaped like a a square in the room. Repeat the activity, finding all of the circular shaped items in the room.
Play “I Spy.”
Dot-to-dot pictures.
Play balloon toss.
Use tracing paper to trace and color pictures.
Trace letters with chalk.
Play flashlight tag on walls and ceilings. The adult an child each holds a flashlight. As the adult shines the light on walls, the child keeps their light superimposed on top of yours. Start with simple strait lines. Then add curved lines, then a circle. Tell them what you are drawing next. Advance the activity by drawing shapes without telling them what you are doing next.
Play with wind-up cars.
Create a race track on the floor. Follow cars with your eyes.
Roll a ball between you and the child. Roll from left-right, right-left, front-back, back-front, and toss the ball.

Visual tracking Toys

Looking for more tools to improve visual tracking? The toys below are great for improving visual tracking and visual scanning in fun ways. These toys, games, and ideas may be a great gift idea for little ones who have visual perceptual difficulties or problems with visual tracking and handwriting, body awareness in space, letter reversals, detail awareness, or maintaining place while reading.

SO, save these ideas for grandparents and friends who might ask for gift ideas for birthdays and holidays. These are some powerhouse visual tracking ideas!

Use Pattern Blocks and Boards (affiliate link) to work on visual fixation of shapes and sizes of shapes.

This Wooden Tangram Puzzle (affiliate link) has many different shapes and forms that can be copied from instructions. Copying from a diagram is a great way to practice visual tracking.

For younger kids, this Wooden Stacking Toy encourages tracking for color sorting. Try some of our pom pom activities that we discussed above!

Mazes are excellent for fostering and building on visual tracking skills. Particularly those that involve a moving ball such as a Marble Run (affiliate link)
or a labrynth (affiliate link).

Watching a ball or moving object that is thrown around a room (like a balloon) is a great way to work on tracking in a big area. These Sportime Sensory Balls SloMo Balls (affiliate link) are lightweight and move more slowly than a typical ball, allowing kids to visually track the bright color. These are very cool for games of toss and rolling in all planes and directions. Use them to address peripheral tracking as well.

A flashlight can be used in so many visual tracking activities. Shine the light on words or letters taped to walls. Play “I Spy” in a dark room, shine shapes like this flashlight (affiliate link)can for visual tracking and form tracking.

More visual Tracking Toys

These visual tracking toys are Amazon affiliate links.

Liquid Motion Bubbler Pens
Maze Ball
Liquid Timer 2 Pack
Shuttle Ball Toy (Zoom Ball) Use this tool in therapy zoom ball games.
Toss and Catch Game

Also check out these other top occupational therapy toys:

Printable List of Toys for VISUAL TRACKING

Want a printable copy of our therapist-recommended toys to support visual tracking skills?

As therapy professionals, we LOVE to recommend therapy toys that build skills! This toy list is done for you so you don’t need to recreate the wheel.

Your therapy caseload will love these VISUAL TRACKING toy recommendations. (There’s space on this handout for you to write in your own toy suggestions, to meet the client’s individual needs, too!)

Enter your email address into the form below. The OT Toolbox Member’s Club Members can access this handout inside the dashboard, under Handouts. Just be sure to log into your account, first!

Pencil Grasp Activities with Fine Motor Play

April 23, 2024 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Helping kids with pencil grasp can be a complicated matter. Kids can hold the pencil too tightly or with an immature grasp no matter how many pencil grips you try. But, there is hope. These pencil grasp activities are fun ways to improve pencil grasp with fine motor play. By using play activities to help kids build a better pencil grasp, kids develop a grasp that is strong and dexterous in ways that carryover to holding a pencil. Try these tripod grasp activities to help kids with pencil grasp development. This is something that therapists want parents to know about pencil grasp development…that a functional pencil grasp might not look like a traditional tripod grasp…and that there are fun ways to work on grasp development!

That said…this is the place for all things pencil grip activities that actually make a difference!

Pencil Grasp

I love to share easy tricks to work on things like fine motor skills. Working on pencil grasp and the fine motor skills needed for handwriting are two of my favorite ways to build functional skills as an Occupational Therapist. This blog post is a round up of some of the best pencil grasp activities and ways to develop a more functional pencil grasp through fine motor play activities. I’ve updated this resource to include more recent pencil grip occupational therapy ideas and grasp activities that I’ve shared.

A functional pencil grasp might not “look like” the traditional tripod grasp. One thing to read up on is grasp patterns, because this plays a huge role inholding the pencil.

Click here to join the Pencil Grasp Challenge.

Pencil grasp challenge to help kids improve their pencil grasp.

Pencil grip activities kids will love for playing while working on pencil grasp perfect for occupational therapy activities.

Improve Pencil Grasp with Fine Motor Play Ideas

First, if you’ve go questions about pencil grasp, check out this resource on building fine motor skills through play. You will find TONS of info about the fine motor “parts” of a functional grasp.

Try these awesome activities to improve pencil grasp through play and fine motor development.

Fine Motor Play Activities to Improve Pencil Grasp

We love incorporating fine motor activities into our play. These posts are some of our favorites from the past year, and as a bonus, will help with the development of the small muscles of the hands. An efficient grip on the pencil uses a tripod grasp (thumb, index, and middle fingers) with an open space between the thumb and index finger. This grasp on the pencil allows kids to better form letters correctly and in a given small space using the fingers to make the pencil movements, vs. using the wrist or whole arm. If your child is struggling with their handwriting, look first at their grasp on the pencil and go from there. Try one of these activities for improved muscle strength and pencil control.

If you are interested in improving pencil grasp, and wondering about all of the fine motor skills that impact a functional pencil grasp, you will definitely want to join the pencil grasp challenge. This free 5 day email series explains everything you want to know about pencil grasp activities that have a powerful impact. Click here to join the Pencil Grasp Challenge.

Pencil activities to help kids write with a functional grasp

So let’s get moving on some of the best pencil grip activities that actually make a difference in a functional pencil grasp.

Pencil Grip Activities

We have many pencil grasp tricks up our sleeve as school based OTs…but there are many ways that you can target specific needs with fun and engaging pencil grip activities! Most of these ideas don’t even use a pencil. They target the underlying skill areas like hand strength, dexterity, and precision. Other tasks DO use a pencil though!

While these wouldn’t be specified in a manual dexterity goal, you would target functional skills of handwriting. These ideas are the play-based strategies, or tools.

Fine motor play idea that promotes pencil grasp with beads and play dough

Pencil Grasp Exercises with Play Dough is fun with these mini fluted flower beads. They build a flexed thumb IP joint which is needed for an efficient pencil grasp.

Strengthening activities for fine motor skills like handwriting activities

Hand Strengthening Exercises are fun with tongs! They are an easy tool to build so many handwriting skills.

Fine motor play activity using tweezers made from craft sticks

These Craft Stick Tweezers build muscle strength, an open web space, and tripod grasp.

Use play dough and this free play dough mat to work on intrinsic muscle strength in the hands.

Play Dough Strengthening Mat works on building the intrinsic muscle strength of the hands.

creative ways to build and work on a functional pencil grasp

Improve pencil grasp through fine motor play with blocks.

Fine Motor Development with Blocks is a great way to build many skills needed in handwriting.

Use coins to work on fine motor skills like in-hand manipulation

In Hand Manipulation with Coins can help build skills needed for pencil grasp like manipulating the pencil during letter formation.

Work on fine motor skills with paperclips to improve thumb opposition.

Thumb Opposition is an important skill needed for an open thumb web space and functional and efficient grasp on the pencil.

Mini Circles Pencil Control Exercises help with building small motor movements and tripod grasp through improved intrinsic muscle strength.

Help kids with fine motor skills using small balls of play dough.

Finger Isolation with Play Dough helps with minute movements of the hands and individual finger movements in managing the pencil.

Clay Exercises can help strengthen the muscles of the hand for increased endurance of pencil grasp.

Improve hand dominance using fine motor activities.

Motoric Separation of the Hand is essential for managing the pencil while utilizing the ulnar, stability side of the hand.

Kids can work on fine motor skills by playing with masking tape on a table surface.

Fine Motor Table-Top Play addresses intrinsic muscle strengthening.

Work on fine motor skills by playing with waterbeads

In-Hand Manipulation: Two Activities In hand manipulation is necessary during pencil grasp to manipulate and advance the pencil while writing, as well as making adjustments with the pencil while erasing.

Fine Motor Play with Tissue Paper is a great way to build intrinsic muscle strength. Strength in the intrinsic muscles ensure a functional tripod grasp.

Make DIY lacing cards to help kids with fine motor skills.

DIY Lacing Cards improves bilateral coordination, needed for holding the paper while writing.

Use pipe cleaners to work on fine motor skills.

Pipe Cleaner Fun builds tripod grasp for use with handwriting.

Use clothespins to work on hand strength.

Fine Motor Strengthening Color Match works on increasing the intrinsic muscle strength of the hands.

Make your own pencil control worksheets.

Pencil Control Worksheets You Can Make at Home These worksheets build pencil control, line awareness, and spatial awareness during handwriting.

Use dry pasta to work on fine motor dexterity

Learning With Dyed Pasta provides a fun activity for building eye hand coordination.

Play with coins to improve fine motor dexterity.

Manipulating Coins for Fine Motor Development is a great way to work on in-hand manipulation needed for manipulating the pencil during handwriting.

Tracing letters with sidewalk chalk improves hand strength.

Rainbow Writing provides a resistive writing surface, providing proprioceptive feedback and a way to work on motor planning in letter formation, as well as tripod grasp on the pencil.

Tripod Grasp with Wikki Stix Pushing the wikki stix into the container works on tripod grasp and intrinsic muscle strength, as well as bilateral coordination.

Use pipe cleaners and a plastic bottle to work on tripod grasp.

Using Pipe Cleaners in Fine Motor Play also improves intrinsic muscle strength and bilateral coordination with a brightly colored stick. Using the plastic bottle provides great auditory feedback.

Here is more information on pencil control and distal mobility in handwriting.

Here are games to improve pencil grasp.

tripod grasp activities

Working on tripod grasp is fun when you add activities! Some tripod grasp activities that strengthen the intrinsic muscles of the hand include:

Tearing paper
Playing with tweezers
Dropping coins into a bank or slot
Rolling balls of play dough
Pushing paper clips onto paper

pencil grip occupational therapy ideas for fine motor skills and pencil grasp

More ways to support this skill include the ones below.

developing pencil grip activities

The ideas listed below are simple tasks you can do to help kids with developing pencil grip. These are the ideas OTs usually have on hand.

Pegboards
Tweezer activities
Clothes pin games
Lacing beads
Play Dough (Here’s a GREAT play dough recipe using old crayons.)
Pop bubble wrap
Play with play dough or silly putty
Use spray bottles to water plants
Play hand games like “where is thumbkin”
Color with very small pieces of broken crayons
Draw or doodle with a small pencil
Crumble paper
Playing cards
Sign language
Shadow puppets

Teaching pencil grasp? Use these fun fine motor activities to improve pencil grasp through play.

Margins in Handwriting

March 7, 2024March 7, 2024 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Occupational therapists work on many aspects of handwriting to ensure that legible writing is a functional means of communication for children and students. One aspect of that is addressing the margins in handwriting. When margins are omitted or neglected, handwriting moves from functional to difficult to read.

Poor use of margins when copying written material is a handwriting problem that looks like different things. When using margins is difficult in handwriting, it leads to illegibility and trouble copying written work.

Margins in handwriting

One thing that comes up frequently in school based OT, is the use of margins when writing. I’ve worked with many students that struggle with knowing to move their pencil to the next line when writing. Other students cram letters into the right margin of the page and then move to the next line only to slightly move over a bit. This means that the left margin slowly creeps across the page.

You’ve seen it before. A child is writing a journal entry or a writing response on a piece of paper and each line of the paragraph creeps in toward the center of the page.

The margins in their handwriting are just all over the place! By the end of the passage, the left margin is half way across the page. You might see them start halfway across the page and try to squash letters in by the time they get to the right side of the page.

It’s hard to read and even the kiddo has trouble reading back over their work. The thing is, the student may not even be aware they are writing like this…

When a child has poor use of margins when writing, there is typically a problem with spatial organization and page orientation.

Decreased spatial awareness can happen due to trouble with visual perceptual awareness.

It may carry over to handwriting that appears very messy with words that are squashed up against one another or spaced with very large spaces between letters.

what are margins in writing

Margins are the edges of the paper. When we write, we move our pencil up to the edge of the right side of the paper, but we stop before we move to the next line to continue writing.

The right margin on a page is where the student will stop writing, but so often, I’ve seen students that cram words right up to the edge of the paper because they can’t conceptualize how much space is needed to fit the word onto that line of the paper. They might end up cramming the whole word so the letters are very small or squished up to the edge of the page.

The left margin is the edge of the page where the next line begins on the paper. I’ve also seen many students who write or copy a list of words, or are writing a paragraph on lined paper. When they move to the next line, the move their pencil over just slightly because they are aligning the word with the written material on the line above. Eventually, you see a margin that creeps across the page toward the middle of the page.

Why kids struggle with margins in handwriting

So, why do we see those handwriting samples where the lines of written work slowly creep over to the middle of the page? With each line that the student writes, they start writing just a bit more away from the margin?

There could be a few different things going on here that impact margin use:

1. There could be a visual perception difficulty going on. Visual perceptual skills could lead to trouble with margin use. Specifically, it could be a problem with visual spatial relations. Spatial relations, or poor spatial awareness difficulties shows up frequently in handwriting.

This presents as poor spacing between letters and words, poor use of margins, or written work that drifts in toward the center of the page. Kids may struggle with knowing when to stop writing on the end of a line of the page and try to squash the material in rather than stopping to move to the next line.

Left to right use of paper or writing spaces on worksheets can be a problem. Other size aspects of handwriting including letter size, placement of letter “parts”, and consistency in sizing can be difficult for the child with visual spatial concerns.

Visual spatial relations can also impact placement of objects or the child’s body parts in relation to other objects, other people, or in movement. This can show up as poor coordination, poor balance, poor self-awareness, poor self-confidence, and even impaired social emotional relations.

Spatial awareness is the ability to perceive the world around one’s self and position themselves or objects accordingly. Awareness of space relates a lot to the proprioceptive and vestibular systems as well as the visual system.

A child who demonstrates poor spatial awareness in handwriting tasks most likely shows some variances of difficulty with gross motor movement, understanding directions, abstract concepts, and language.

2. There could be an oculomotor component. The movement of the eyes in activities is complex! When we see issues with margins, there could be a couple of oculomotor issues happening. At a basic level, the eyes move to take in information and process that information for use.

One oculomotor skill that may be in play with margin trouble are visual saccades/visual scanning. Saccades are the ability to visually scan information. Saccades require the ability to fixate on information in the visual fields.

Saccadic movement, or more commonly known as visual saccades, is the ability of the eyes to move in synchrony from point A to point B rapidly WITHOUT deviating from the path. When kids move their eyes to the next line of a paper, they jump to the nearest anchor (which will be the letter above on the last line of text they just wrote.) They will then scoot their pencil over and under that letter, resulting in written work that drifts in toward the middle of the page. Here is more information on visual saccades and learning.

We cover more about oculomotor skills and how they result in functional issues in reading, writing, and daily activities in the free Visual Processing Lab here on The OT Toolbox.

3. It might be developmental. In this case, kids just need more experience with writing paragraphs of text. They place their written material anywhere on the page or drift over on the line when starting to write. Visual and verbal cues…and more practice can help.

Even children without visual perception difficulties may tend to drift their handwriting in toward the middle of the page as they write paragraphs. This is especially apparent in free writing, journal writing, or writing prompts. You will see that children who are developing their ability to form thoughts in paragraph form. As they write, it is common to see the lines start to drift toward the middle of the page. Here is more information on development of eye-hand coordination.

3. It might be speed of writing or visual inattention. Basically, you might see a kiddo who just isn’t paying attention when they are writing. In this case, students might be writing so quickly that they are focusing on the content of the writing versus the layout of the page and where they are placing their written work.

This happens when kids are taking notes and trying to quickly get the information on the page. You may also see the lines of text drifting over during free writing or timed writing tasks. In these cases, a visual cue can help but it might just take a verbal prompt. Point out how the margins are creeping over and see if that helps. Here is more information on visual attention.

4. Look at reflexes. One thing that might be contributing to margin use is a retained ATNR reflex. Check out our resource on retained primitive reflexes. Here is information on primitive reflexes in general and how these movement reflexes impact function.

5. Look at midline crossing. Delays with crossing midline can impact movement across the page as the student writes. Read about midline and then try some of these midline activities. In this case, bringing attention to the margin can help. Use the strategies we have listed at the bottom of the page.

Use a highlighted line to mark the margin in handwriting tasks, to help kids with spatial awareness.

This visual processing checklist can be a helpful tool in screening for visual processing difficulties prior to a full evaluation. It can be a way to collect qualitative information to include in assessment write-ups as well.

Tips for Handwriting Margins

Today, I’ve got some tips for helping with spatial awareness in handwriting, including how to help with margins when writing. These tips can help kids with writing on the paper and using handwriting that is legible so they can come back and read what they’ve written. (And so the teacher or parent can read that handwriting too!)

Visual perceptual skills are needed for so many functional skills. You’ll find easy and fun ways to work on visual perceptual skills through play here. These are creative ways to work on the underlying issues that might be playing into trouble with margin use in handwriting as a result of spatial awareness difficulties.

This post contains affiliate links.

QUICK tips for improving spatial awareness:

For some of the issues mentioned above, such as an underlying visual perceptual or oculomotor problems, further help and interventions will be needed. Seek out assessment from an occupational therapist for individualized treatment and intervention plans. Use of our visual processing checklist to help to identify a specific area related to visual processing needs.

The strategies that I’ve listed below are tools for helping students use margins when writing and copying onto paper. I love using some of the visual prompts because it helps to draw visual attention toward the prompt. Some of the strategies below are fun for kids and unexpected, so that visual prompt helps them to remember where to start or stop their pencil along the margins.

Try some of these strategies to help with margins:

There are ways to accommodate for difficulties with spatial awareness. One quick tip is to use a highlighted left margin. This is a great way for those kids whose writing drifts over to the middle of the page as they write or kids who start in the middle of the page.

Use stickers placed along the right margin of to cue the student that they are nearing the edge of paper when writing.
Draw a line down the left margin for a starting point. Then use a different color to draw a vertical line down the right margin.
Place a thin piece of tape along the left margin. This can serve as a visual and physical cue as the place to start writing. It’s a visual anchor that helps with visual scanning.
Draw boxes for words on worksheets for them to write within.
Place small green dots on each line along the left margin. These are the “green lights” so students know where to start writing. Place small red dots on each line along the right margin. These are “red lights” so students know where to stop writing.
Spacing Tools for spacing between words or letters.
Draw a red stop sign at the right margin.
Try using graph paper for writing. Here is some Graph paper on Amazon. Try 1/2 inch wide rule first.
Raised line paper
Slant board
Slant the paper on the desk and work on writing posture.
Try smaller width of lines instead of primary paper.
RediSpace paper has a green line along the left margin and a red line along the right margin.
Try using a spacing tool pointer stick. You can easily make your own!
Take a look at the ATNR. This could also be an issue impacting margin use.

Handwriting sample with poor margins and spatial awareness in writing task.

Kids can use handwriting accommodations for poor spatial awareness and margins in handwriting.

This activity is part of our month-long handwriting series where we are sharing creative and easy ways to address common handwriting issues in our 30 Easy Quick Fixes for Better Handwriting series.

The Handwriting Book is a comprehensive resource created by experienced pediatric OTs and PTs.

The Handwriting Book covers everything you need to know about handwriting, guided by development and focused on function. This digital resource is is the ultimate resource for tips, strategies, suggestions, and information to support handwriting development in kids.

The Handwriting Book breaks down the functional skill of handwriting into developmental areas. These include developmental progression of pre-writing strokes, fine motor skills, gross motor development, sensory considerations, and visual perceptual skills. Each section includes strategies and tips to improve these underlying areas.

Strategies to address letter and number formation and reversals
Ideas for combining handwriting and play
Activities to practice handwriting skills at home
Tips and strategies for the reluctant writer
Tips to improve pencil grip
Tips for sizing, spacing, and alignment with overall improved legibility

Click here to grab your copy of The Handwriting Book today.

Rainbow Writing Letter Formation Activity

October 16, 2023September 25, 2023 by Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colorful letter As and lowercase a's with overlapping colors. Text reads "rainbow writing"

This quick and easy rainbow writing activity is an easy handwriting activity to working on letter formation and letter construction. Rainbow writing handwriting is a strategy to work on letter formation as a multisensory learning activity for kids. This handwriting activity is an Easy Handwriting strategy that can be so helpful in teaching letter formation and pencil control.

You can practice letters with rainbow writing using different utensils. We used rainbow writing with chalk before too.

What is Rainbow Writing

Rainbow writing might be a handwriting activity that you’ve heard of before. Many times, we see rainbow writing as an option for practicing sight words or high frequency words, especially as a multi-sensory learning options.

Typically, you’ll see rainbow writing as one way that kids can practice writing words and letters: They are asked to write the words in a color of the rainbow and then trace over those letters with another color, thus making a rainbow of letters.

Rainbow writing is a great strategy for practicing handwriting! Kids get multiple attempts at forming letters, working on motor planning, pencil placement, and repetition (practice) that very much plays a part in handwriting legibility.

Things to Watch for with Rainbow Writing

Color mixing rainbow writing activity for helping kids with letter formation

When tracing, there are some things to consider. Especially with rainbow writing, kids can develop bad letter formation habits. Read through this resource on tracing sheets to see the pros and cons of tracing with kids.

Some things you’ll want to consider about rainbow writing activities:

Be sure to watch how the student starts the letters when they rainbow write. It can be easy to start a poor muscle memory for writing the letters if they start at the wrong starting point or form the letters incorrectly. When they rainbow write each letter and it progressively gets worse, this can create an incorrect motor plan in the handwriting process.
Make sure the child that is using rainbow writing to practice letters don’t progressively move their pencil in bigger and bigger strokes as they include each color.
Some kids tend to make the rainbow letters with colors next to each other like a rainbow rather than tracing on top of each color. Ask the student to make a mixed up rainbow by tracing right on top of each color.

How to use Rainbow Writing for handwriting

Rainbow writing is a way to work on legibility of written work.

Helping kids write letters with correct letter formation is essential for legibility, especially as kids get older and are required to produce more written work at a faster rate. Consider the high school student that needs to rapidly jot down notes. If letters are formed from bottom to top or in sections, their speed and legibility will drastically drop. Sometimes it is speed OR legibility that suffers when a child needs to produce more amounts of written work in a specific period of time (i.e. copying down notes as a teacher rattles off details.

The younger student will be affected by inaccuracies in letter formation as well. Around the third grade, students are responsible for jotting down their homework assignments into a planner.

When the child is bombarded by classroom sensory input (pencil sharpeners, students, desk chairs moving, hallway distractions, coughing classmates…) difficulties with letter formation can result in illegible homework lists and trouble with re-reading the assignment list when the student attempts to start on homework.

Rainbow Writing Color Changing Activity

There’s more to rainbow writing than incorporating colors and sensory experiences into handwriting. Color Mixing Rainbow Writing is a creative way to help kids learn the right way to actually form letters, because the task allows children to self-correct their written work right in the moment.

They can see where their letter formation has veered into poor letter size or placement. Rainbow writing then becomes a strategy to improve motor planning in handwriting and pencil control as well.

Affiliate links are included below.

In the handwriting activity shared here, we are taking rainbow writing a step further.

This letter formation activity is really simple and a LOT of fun. Kids can work on typical motor pattern of letters by exploring color mixing.

MATERIALS for Rainbow Writing

When you rainbow write, a student can use different colors of crayons, markers, colored pencils, or even chalk. You can use colors of the rainbow, or if you want to work on color changing, use just a couple of the colors.

You’ll need just three markers for this activity.

Red, Yellow and Blue markers are all you need to work on letter formation with color mixing. We used dollar store markers, but also tried these washable markers (affiliate link- As an Amazon Influencer, I earn from qualifying purchases.) and the activity worked too.

How to rainbow write with color changing

For this activity, you’ll need to first write the letters that you are working on in one color. Then, using another color, trace over the letters to create a new color.

2. Mixing the yellow and red made orange letters and mixing the yellow and blue markers made green letters.

Kids can work on letter formation but experience the color changing of the markers when they write over letters in different colors.

Some different options to try with this rainbow writing activity:

Use just 2 colors so kids can try mixing two primary colors to see what the colors make
Not when the colors do not change: did they marker lines go off the lines? Can letters be written again or can the student try again to make the colors change?
Some kids may benefit from a model that is written in one color by the teacher, therapist, or parent. Then, the student can try to keep their letters on the lines to ensure proper size, spacing, and formation
Try making color coded messages to one another using the color changing activity
Work on phonetic awareness, by making vowels or phenomes one color and consonants or letter blends another color.

Rainbow Writing Activity with Color mixing for handwriting.

Tips for Rainbow Writing

Because kids can develop bad habits with rainbow writing, here are some things to keep in mind.

Work on letter formation with this activity by providing kids with the amount of assistance they need to form letters correctly. At first, they may need verbal, physical, and visual cues to form letters correctly.
Encourage students to form the letters from top to bottom and in the correct way. When they re-trace the letters with a second color, be sure they are forming and tracing the letters correctly.
When kids trace over the colors, they will be forming letters slowly in order to trace over the letters and ensuring the colors mix.
By tracing over the lines to form letters, they are building the typical motor patterns needed to write the letters correctly and efficiently.

We worked on cursive letters with this activity, but it would work very well with printed letters, particularly letters that are typically reversed or confused like b and d reversals.

Here is more information on letter reversals to consider.

Looking for more creative ways to work on handwriting? Check out these creative ways to help kids work on their written work:

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DIY Dry Erase Board Handwriting Travel Kit

Rainbow Handwriting Kit– This resource pack includes handwriting sheets, write the room cards, color worksheets, visual motor activities, and so much more. The handwriting kit includes:

Write the Room, Color Names: Lowercase Letters
Write the Room, Color Names: Uppercase Letters
Write the Room, Color Names: Cursive Writing
Copy/Draw/Color/Cut Color Worksheets
Colors Roll & Write Page
Color Names Letter Size Puzzle Pages
Flip and Fill A-Z Letter Pages
Colors Pre-Writing Lines Pencil Control Mazes
This handwriting kit now includes a bonus pack of pencil control worksheets, 1-10 fine motor clip cards, visual discrimination maze for directionality, handwriting sheets, and working memory/direction following sheet! Valued at $5, this bonus kit triples the goal areas you can work on in each therapy session or home program.

Click here to get your copy of the Colors Handwriting Kit.

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Visual Motor Integration and Letter Reversals

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Supporting Correct Letter Formation and Directionality

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