How to hold the yarn

When I am knitting outside the classroom environment, I use the continental method, wrapping the yarn on my left index finger, just like I crochet.

But when I am teaching beginner knitting, I use the "right hand throw" method.

I find that there are a couple of possibilities when students are starting to knit with this method.

In the first (and most common) case, they hold it quite tightly for the part where they are bringing the new loop through the stitch on the left hand needle. But they keep holding it tightly, which makes the new stitch very very small, and difficult to work in the following row. My solution is to tell them to release the yarn just a bit, and pull that new stitch strongly away from the left hand needle, so that the new stitch clearly forms an upside-down teardrop.

In the second (and much rarer) case, they hold the yarn so loosely that it is difficult to form the stitch, to bring the new loop through the stitch on the lh needle without losing it. Then, typically, they have been listing to me work with the student with the too-tight problem, so they really overcompensate, and then make the newly created stitch huge! My solution for them is to show them a more appropriately-sized upside-down teardrop, and tell them to tighten their stitches a bit after they are formed.

How do you solve these problems?

Thanks

Judy
http://www.learntoknitcalgary.ca/