31 for 21: Day 16 Twist n’ Write Pencil

So with Avery starting kindergarten we are working hard on her writing skills. And we have come along way but we still have a long ways to go..but today I am on cloud nine!!!! 
We have been dotting letters and numbers for her to trace. There has really been no attempt to write anything on her own besides her name. The only thing she could really write on her own really good was her name..and even with the dotting letters it has been hard for her to trace.  Look at the picture for example..she isn't right on the dots. I don’t think it is matching up for her visually!

Avery’s OT therapist brought this pencil that she found at a teacher store..and we were just going to try it and see how it worked!!!! It gives her more control for her smaller hands.. The shape helps the child hold the pencil correctly, and the size helps lessen the death grip that some have on pencils.

OH MY WORD!!!!!  This pencil is A-h-Ma-Z-I-N-G!!!!!!!! She wrote words on her own…the first two words in the following picture the therapist just called out each letter and she wrote it from her memory (mouse and night)..and then she thought she would see how she did with a visual cue so she wrote the word out first then had Avery copy it..

Brielle had to come home and bust my bubble a little and tell me that the only word that she could really read was cat…but I don’t care..I can see the other ones:)
This picture looks like her therapist has her hand on Avery’s hand helping her but she really doesn't ..I promise!! Anyways..guess what I had to do then…Go online and find me that pencil and I ordered her some!!!!  I ordered them from here and some refill pencil lead from here If anyone else wants to look up this pencil it is called a twist n’ write pencil…


Two pointers that we are going to change from the suggestion of our OT therapist…
*To help her keep her letters contained…draw individual squares. and have her place one letter in each square..visual box..it works great!!!  I've showed you that before with Avery’s name..how well she controlled it once we drew boxes and had her place one letter in each box..
*Don’t do dots for them to trace. Use a highlighter and have them trace or copy what ever they need to from that instead. All of the dots are not good visually..and it makes sense..go back up and look at the picture of how she traced the word with the dots..and then look at the picture of the pencil..in the corner of the picture you will see some numbers highlighted and she traced over them with pencil..look at how well she traces the highlighted ones compared to the dotted ones! Point made! Another suggestion for tracing was to write the word out in highlighter and then copy it on a copier and it will be lighter gray for her to trace too…
I found a YouTube video of someone showing how to write with this pencil..Check it out!!