How do you teach them to catch a ball? (Rec League)

1. Make sure the players has a decent glove, one that is broken in & the girl can handle. Some new gloves for younger kids (Wilson) are made of a nice soft leather that feels like it is already broken in. They are not overly expensive either.
2. Use an 11" real softball.
3. Throw the ball right to her glove, every time, over and over again. Have her hold it off to the side a little, and hit her glove. The glove and weight of the ball will do the rest.
4. Throw the ball with a little speed as this will reduce the time she can think about the throw, and it will go right in.
5. Before too long, she will be having a catch with you.
6. Once she starts smiling with her success, tell her where you are going to throw it and have her move the glove to the ball. For instance, tell her which side of her body, high or low, etc.
7. After you do a few of those, stop. Tell what a great job she did, go inside, have a snack and talk about whatever while she plays with her glove and ball.

One of the keys is to tell her what you are going to do. Tell her you are going to throw the ball to the glove to help her out till she is confident the glove will actually catch the ball. Tell her when you are going to start moving the throw around. Physically show her how to move the glove to catch the ball on the opposite side of the body, or down low, etc. Then throw the ball to those areas. Take any unknowns or items she needs to think about out of the process, this will help her focus on just moving the glove and catching the ball.

I don't recommend she hold the glove directly in front of her as she may flinch. Wait till she works up to that.
I don't recommend tennis balls or other similar balls because they will bounce out of the glove, and could actually be a confidence killer when she can't hold it in the glove.

Lickety Split said:

I don't recommend tennis balls or other similar balls because they will bounce out of the glove, and could actually be a confidence killer when she can't hold it in the glove.

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tennis balls do bounce out of gloves, but this also helps to teach them to squeeze. like others have said, I like to do bare hand tennis balls, then go to tennis balls in glove, then to real balls. when they are using barehands, they also tend to use both, and this reinforces using throwing hand to help close glove as well. I also start progression all over again for fly balls (I actually use a racket to launch them for this, underhand lob style, takes a little practice, but saves my bum shoulder).

I threw wrenches and hammers at my dd when she was in tball. She learned quickly

WARRIORMIKE said:

I threw wrenches and hammers at my dd when she was in tball. She learned quickly

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Well maybe not the dodge part applies.

how I did it for DD (over many sessions). early sessions she always had mask on.

had DD position her glove to her left (RH throw), pointing up, like waving "hi" to me. stood about 8-10 feet away, threw ball directly into her glove (underhand, but not too slow) several hundred times

had DD position her glove at 9 oclock if you were facing her, fingers pointing away from her (ie back hand), basically glove in front of upper right arm. stood about 8-10 feet away, threw ball directly into her glove several hundred times

had DD position her glove directly in front of her chest, fingers pointing towards her right, thumb down. stood about 8-10 feet away, threw ball directly into her glove several hundred times

then, repeated, but instead of same position, would call position out to her (waving, chest, right side, etc.) mixing it up.

next step would be to have DD kind of in a ready position, but not down and ready, and i would mix up the throws, but still those three position, but no announcement. again, stood about 8-10 feet away, threw ball directly to the spot several hundred times

the advanced version would be having her catch ball thrown right between her knees, then moving to low to her backhand side. this was to teach her how and when to transition the glove (which happens at about 7 oclock when facing a RH thrower)

actual sequencing was not quite like this. i would proceed to as many of the steps as I could in a single session, but always making certain she had fairly mastered a step before moving on to next. might take 50 or 60 throws on a given step the first time, only 20 or even 10 the next session. that is how it adds up to several hundred times for each position/step.

Once they have pretty much mastered each step, you can simply play catch with them. I still throw mostly underhand to DD2, as it more realistically simulates a throw from her teamates (ie lower trajectory), unless we are doing some long toss.

I always liked using the velcro balls and disks when teaching really young players (4-5-6) who are absolute beginners. If you haven't seen these, it's a backyard/beach game you can find at Wal-Mart, Target, Dollar Store etc. Round disks go over the hand and velcro ball sticks to disc. Reason I liked it is that kids usually end up having to "catch" ball with fingers up and don't get into basket catching habit. If they slap at the ball it will bounce off instead of sticking...good way to teach soft hands simultaneously. Ball is basically a tennis ball, so it doesn't hurt if they get hit.

We have plyayer if ball is in air, she is so good. Nothing is getting by her.


Ball in ground, she has not caught one,

Tom said:

I always liked using the velcro balls and disks when teaching really young players (4-5-6) who are absolute beginners. If you haven't seen these, it's a backyard/beach game you can find at Wal-Mart, Target, Dollar Store etc. Round disks go over the hand and velcro ball sticks to disc. Reason I liked it is that kids usually end up having to "catch" ball with fingers up and don't get into basket catching habit. If they slap at the ball it will bounce off instead of sticking...good way to teach soft hands simultaneously. Ball is basically a tennis ball, so it doesn't hurt if they get hit.

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I second this 100%!

My son is in T-ball. Was doing ok for a 4 year old, but you know how it is...
He got the velcro disk for easter, and was snagging everything I through to him. I was pretty amazed. It helped him a lot when we were playing with it a lot, got busy, stopped playing with the velcro disc, and he slowly reverted back to not being able to catch.

Biggest hindrance i've observed teaching 8u players to catch is their glove. Many have gloves that are too small or stiff to actually catch the ball. Ball may hit glove in pocket, but then just bounces out. At beginning of each season, I would inspect gloves, then pull parents aside and suggest they buy their kid a larger glove, 90% of time that advice is ignored, and they wonder why their kid cannot catch balls at end of season.