AboutMarsha Cunningham Expertise My expertise is in 1st-3rd grade, I specialize in beginning
reading and writing, but I teach drawing and painting first to help students gain confidence.
I also use jigsaw puzzle strategy to teach concentration as a subject and enlist parents to keep their children away from scary movies,among other things,which cause nightmares, sleep deprivation and low test scores!
Experience I have taught K-3 for 24 years, given in-service to parents and teachers and presented at reading conferences. To see my children's art work and examples of improved test scores go to www.artsimprovingacademics.org
My daughter is finishing up kindergarten. She is reading way above level and I am proud of her for that. Her handwriting is terrible, however. She is not holding the pencil correctly. I asked her K teacher about it and she told me not to worry about it. But I think she will continue to hold pencils incorrectly the rest of her life if she doesn't start doing it correctly now. When I remind her, she will hold it right. But she always goes back to "her way." I have bought her those pencil holder things, but as soon as she has a pencil without one she is back to her old way of holding it. I sent one with her to school numerous times and she takes them off. Is this a problem? Does it matter if she holds the pencil correctly?
Answer Dear Michelle,
In my experience it absolutely does matter how a child holds a writing instrument, even in pre-sschool as that's where the habit develops.
I coaxed my students from the first 5 minutes of class in September and never let up. I used every opportunity to show them the difference in their writing when they held the pencil correctly and used good posture. It was one of my topics at parent conferences and I have a page of rules at www.wholephonics.com Click on Penmanship to the left.
I even had monitors to ensure that classmates were not slipping back into old habits. If you click on student Writing you will see the first pages of my 2nd graders writing. This class was very responsive to my directions and you can see the results.
They were also proud of their results which affected their desire to write and write and write because their hand did not get tired and they were comfortable in their correct posture. My students always begged to write, but it's because of the attention I gave to their posture.
I always had a struggle though, because many of the students would hold on to *that's' just the way I write* and be stubborn about it. As far as I know, I was the only teacher in my school who paid that much attention to this issue. Others felt that there wasn't time. I think that they must have just given up but I said that there wasn't time not to; it made a tremendous difference in student's outlook, as they knew full well when their writing was not neat like their classmates and the writing will not improve without the posture and correct grip.
Squeezing the pencil is the worst, holding the pencil too close to the lead and with head down is next, along with not holding on to the paper with the other hand, but then sitting squarely in the seat is also very important--- but see all of the points at my website.
