Is writing by hand neglected at school?

Children are finding it increasingly difficult to write by hand - this is the conclusion of a representative survey of 2,000 teachers published a few weeks ago by the German Association for Education and Training. According to the German teaching staff, around 45 per cent of boys at primary school have problems with handwriting, compared to 29 per cent of girls.

It is a result that is being received very differently in Switzerland. «We are aware of the findings from Germany,» says Franziska Peterhans, «and we don't expect the results to be any different in Switzerland.» Peterhans is the Central Secretary of the Swiss Teachers' Association and has been intensively involved in the debate surrounding the abolition of the Swiss «Schnürlischrift» script as a school script in recent years, which was above all a discussion about the value of handwriting.

Children remember a letter better if they draw it by hand instead of typing it in.

«For a very long time, beautiful writing was incredibly important,» says Peterhans, «but the Schnürli script is particularly difficult to learn.» This was one of the reasons why the Swiss-German Conference of Directors of Education has only recommended the so-called Swiss-German basic script without restriction since autumn 2014. With this, children first start with block letters, then the individual letters are joined together.

Why struggle with beautiful handwriting when anyone can write beautifully on a PC?

One argument that teachers often hear these days is: why should children struggle, there are tablets and computers, you don't need to be able to write well. «We see it very differently,» says Franziska Peterhans.

On the one hand, it is quite clear that children's writing behaviour has changed with the increasing use of digital media, and mastering typing on a keyboard is also important. «On the other hand, writing by hand and with a pen is an important task that can be used to train fine motor skills »

Handwriting promotes brain development

Everything that has to do with motor skills and movement promotes the development of the brain. Writing by hand is therefore about much more than simply preserving an ancient cultural technique, nor is it about practising a nice-looking style. Handwriting is brain writing. Holding and guiding a pen, varying the pressure, requires a completely different performance from our brain than typing on a keyboard or swiping on a tablet.

Studies have shown that handwriting can also help with learning. For example, children remember a letter better if they draw it by hand instead of typing it on a computer screen. A study with US students has also shown that not only learning to read, but also memorising facts is easier when handwritten.

Experts suspect that the combination of the movement of the hand and the corresponding content anchors the information in the brain differently than when typing. Writing is much more strenuous than typing. Teachers report of pupils who get a cramp in their hand if they have to hold a pencil for ten minutes.

Practising writing needs training

The only thing that helps here is consistent practice. «Colouring a mandala at home isn't necessarily an exercise in creativity, but it's a great way to train fine motor skills,» says Franziska Peterhans. She encourages parents and teachers to keep creating opportunities for colouring, drawing and writing. «It's important to be there, not correcting, but participating in what the child achieves with great effort and endeavour with their own hands.»

And schools in particular, says Christa Röber, need to be given more responsibility for teaching writing. The German teacher and language didactician has been working on writing for more than 40 years. «Teaching in this area has changed massively,» says Röber, «in the 1950s and 1960s, entire writing exercise books were still filled to practise and automate the correct sequence of movements when writing letters and words, with arrows indicating the direction in which the next sheet had to be drawn.»

Writing movement is trained less in schools

Since the 1970s, the focus of writing has been on children's independence and creativity. They are often encouraged to write their own texts at an early age using so-called phonetic tables. In these, all the sounds of a language are shown next to a phonetic picture, for example an Au next to a car or an H next to a hat.

Röber criticises the fact that errors in these texts are not corrected and that relatively little attention is paid to a prescribed sequence of writing movements when producing letters. «This controlled form of introduction to a movement sequence that has been tried and tested for decades has been completely lost in most schools,» says Röber.

This also continues in the higher grades: where only ticking boxes and filling in gaps is expected when completing tasks, attention to legible writing falls by the wayside. The current discussion about the decline of handwriting coincides with international studies on the spelling and reading performance of primary school pupils. According to Röber, the results are alarming: An increasing number of children are leaving primary school without being able to read properly.

The advantages of handwriting

Experts assume that the deficits identified are also due to the fact that the focus has shifted towards independence and creativity - at the expense of a careful introduction to writing. «Writing by hand has the advantage that children perceive the structures of spelling more intensively,» says Röber. This benefits both spelling and reading.

«Especially for children who are a little slower, the intensive contact with words when writing is a very valuable thing.» Sibylle Hurschler would like to take a differentiated view of the German study on children's writing skills. The writing didactician and handwriting researcher at the Lucerne University of Teacher Education points out that this is not an empirical study, but merely a survey of teachers. Moreover, the questions were closed, meaning that the participants had to decide in favour of predefined answers.

Blurring the line between handwriting and keyboard

However, studies by the Lucerne University of Teacher Education have empirically proven that Swiss children can write more legibly and more fluently than before when they switch from compulsory school handwriting to basic handwriting. «The children develop their personal, partially connected handwriting from the unconnected basic script. This eliminates the need to learn a second script,» says Sibylle Hurschler.

The scientist has observed that the boundary between handwriting and keyboard is becoming blurred in practice. «We're seeing more and more hybrid solutions,» says Hurschler, «I have young people sitting in my lectures who switch between the keyboard and digital pen on their digital devices as a matter of course and with great skill.» Particularly in complex contexts, learners retain knowledge more easily if they write it down by hand.

Good handwriting lessons enable children to use writing as a means of communication.

Sybille Hurschler, didactician for writing

«This probably has to do with the fact that when typing, processing is linear, whereas when writing, what is heard is formatted, sorted and integrated into hierarchies. This means that the text is already understood and processed,» explains Hurschler. She argues that both techniques - writing by hand and on the keyboard - should coexist in a meaningful way.

And in such a way that they can be practised without much effort. It is still true that children should learn to write legibly, says Hurschler. «However, the fluency of handwriting is just as important, as this relieves the burden on the working memory.» Automated patterns are created that can be recalled without thinking, just as the hand finds the fingerings effortlessly when playing the guitar, for example.

«Automated handwriting therefore makes it possible to concentrate on writing the text,» says Hurschler. «Good handwriting lessons enable children to use writing as a means of communication.»

What does good handwriting teaching look like?

And what does good teaching look like? Hurschler says that handwriting research has shown that short, intensive and regular training intervals should always be followed by writing activities where text production is involved. In the case of letter sequences, it is helpful in this phase to deliberately vary the size, speed and use of force instead of mechanical repetition and to consolidate the sequence in this playful approach.

How wide is the curve of the small G? Is the small A drawn narrow or bulbous? Is the dot on the i actually a dot, or has the scribe drawn a circle?

Handwriting also plays a role on another level: it is an expression of personality, a kind of fingerprint on paper. Just as facial expressions and gestures make us unmistakable. If you give up the pen completely in favour of the keyboard, you also lose an opportunity to express yourself.

Calligraphy and hand lettering

The art of beautiful writing - that's what calligraphy means when translated from Greek. Written with a pen or brush, the calligrapher must work with the utmost precision and a well-trained stroke. This can be learnt by older children who enjoy creating letters.

Hand lettering is simpler and therefore also suitable for beginners in reading and writing. Individual letters are drawn, painted or sketched, and there is a wide range of tools to choose from: from coloured pencils to ink and fineliner to watercolour paint, everything is possible. Both calligraphy and hand lettering train the writer's fine motor skills.