holding a pen/crayon

 Every now and again I take a whole load of close ups of children's hands when they are writing and drawing to see how they hold their pens - as well as observing how they hold their cutlery. The idea is to se where they are in their pen holding development and what kind of activities I can offer to support this (like more fine motor skill activities). I like to document which hand is the dominant hand, if they use both knife and fork, and how, as well as how they hold writing utensils - in the hope that I will learn more about what activities support the children in the eating and writing - beads, tweezers, painting - sometimes gross motor skills need to be addressed to help the fine motor skills...

 One thing I noticed in my close up sessions was that if a child turned the crayon onto its side the child could no longer hold it in a full hand grip. The photo above and below is the same child at the same session of drawing ice and polar bears. The same goes for using crayons that are VERY small (or pencils that are VERY small) the children can no longer hold them in a whole hand grip and are forced to adapt their grip to one that is more ergonomical.
Check yourself - hold a pen with a full hand and you will notice that you write from your shoulder, hold the pen with your middle finger controlling the pen and you will notice that you write from your elbow, and if you hold your pen with your index finger controlling the pen you write from your wrist. The latter being the most ergonomical.

I don't want to force children into holding their pen correctly, but I would like to encourage it in a playful and natural manner. No doubt I will learn more and more about holding pens and crayons as I take more and more photos over the years.