When working on writing with kids, Occupational Therapists are not handwriting teachers. We do not teach handwriting, and we don not practice handwriting. What we do is we use our specialized skills to figure out where the trouble is coming from. We are very skilled at assessing movement, motor control, visual motor ability, and motor[Read More]
Activities
Bouncy Ball Hand Skills
Bouncy balls. Gotta love em. They come in all sizes, and as their name suggests, boy are they bouncy. They are very engaging to kids and they are fun in so many ways I love this activity because you can be so concrete with your directions. Hold the blue ball with your finger and thumb.[Read More]
Big mouth creature for feeding pom poms to
You can put manipulatives into any container, but when you make the container into a creature that is hungry, it makes it so much more fun to do the work. I saw this cute little creature on Pinterest, but it originally came from a blog called The Preschool Experiment. He was so easy to make,[Read More]
Using the SnapType App
When you have a student who knows what they want to write but all the years of therapy are not making their writing more legible, you have to try other options. Often when kids have really bad writing with no spacing, they also have trouble reading as the two are very connected. I have one[Read More]
Pencil Grips–Pros and Cons
Most kids do not need to use a pencil grip. I rarely recommend having a student use a special grip, and when I do recommend it, it means that the grip really does help. What are the determining factors for needing a pencil grip? The student is not able to maintain the proper grip on[Read More]