Sir – Pádraic Harvey’s (Letters, July 1st) guidance on the importance of developing the dynamic tripod pencil grip is somewhat accurate. While the tripod grip minimises the risk of strain and offers the greatest control, there are four pencil grips recognised as functional or “mature grasps” in the literature.
Mature grasps include lateral tripod, dynamic tripod, lateral quadruped and dynamic quadruped. A functional pencil grip enables an individual to write legibly, fluently and without experiencing pain or fatigue.
In this digital age of typing and texting, it is worth noting that the time and effort it might take to amend a pencil grip that deviates from the dynamic tripod might be enough to stop an individual writing at all. And that is something we really don’t want.
A poor pencil grip does not necessarily equate to poor handwriting. – Yours, etc,
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SINÉAD McCAULEY LAMBE,
Chapelizod,
Dublin.
