Handwriting increasingly illegible

Tekst Daniëlla van 't Erve - Redactie Onderwijsblad - 13 juni 2023 - 6 Minuten om te lezen

Picture: Type tank

Scottish and crooked, no white space between words or sentences full of capitals. More than a third of group 8 students start secondary school with a sadly bad handwriting. “And that number is increasing at an alarming rate,” says children's physiotherapist Anneloes Overvelde, who researched children with writing problems.

Learning to write has been neglected in primary schools for years. After groups 3 and 4 it is not much discussed, while continuing to practice until group 8 is necessary for good handwriting. “During the lockdown, children were also often unable to receive proper instruction and guidance online. So there will be a whole class that can barely write legibly.”

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The question is whether that is a bad thing in a time of increasing digitalisation, as a result of which people write less and less on paper. “Yes, that is disturbing,” says Overvelde, who is committed to effective handwriting education with the multidisciplinary SchrijvenNL platform. Although she also sees learning to type as an important skill, she believes writing on paper will always be around.

“Scientific research shows that children learn to read better and faster when they learn to write the letters by hand. That has to do with the embodiment theory: learning by doing leads to more intensive activity in the brain, so that you remember the letters better. And the same goes for other subjects. Research shows that students from upper secondary and higher education achieve higher grades if they use the pen instead of the computer to take notes and to learn.”

The handwriting in this illustration belongs to student Harald and was written before he received help. Image: Type tank

But this requires a smooth and legible handwriting. Overvelde: “Writing is a cognitive and motor skill. If one of the two causes difficulties, it requires so much working memory that it is at the expense of the content and therefore leads to lower grades.” Teachers also give lower grades on tests if the answers are difficult to read, according to other research. Even if the answers are correct. “When handwriting improves, all learning goes better and grades go up. It is therefore worth investing more time in this”, concludes Overvelde.

Contrary to popular belief, bad writing is usually not due to motor skills

Contrary to popular belief, bad writing is usually not due to motor skills. “The vast majority of writing problems are due to illegible letter shapes,” says Overvelde. That is also what writing expert Else Kooijman sees in her study from 2020 in which 25 pre-university students from different schools participated. 'The assumption that students in secondary education have sufficient knowledge of numbers, lower case and upper case letters appears to be incorrect', she writes in the research report. Functional handwriting in secondary education.

For example, many students do not completely close the letters a and o, making them look like u and v. For example, an r often looks like an i, and the s like an r. There is also often no question of a regular script with letters in the right proportion and at the right distance from each other. “Many primary schools do not pay attention to regularity, while this is also essential for readability,” says Kooijman, who teaches writing at teacher training colleges and set up the postgraduate training to become a writing teacher.

Not to late

According to Kooijman, handwriting education must once again be given a clear place in the primary school curriculum in order to turn the tide. In addition, teachers themselves need to be better trained to teach children how to write. “There is a big difference in how much time teacher educators spend on handwriting education,” she explains. “On some courses, students only have three lessons in the first year. But to train them properly, it is necessary that the subject is covered more extensively and also in other years.”

With a few instructions, such as about the letter shape, students can quickly improve their handwriting

According to her, it is certainly not too late for the current generation of students. Her research shows that students quickly improve their handwriting with a few instructions, such as about the letter shape. In addition, skills that save students time are useful, such as the use of abbreviations and bullet points. An orderly text contributes to its readability and is therefore important for study success. Kooijman: “Students don't know how to take good notes and write everything down in full sentences. There is a lot to be gained in this.”

This is Harald's handwriting after he got help. Image: Type tank

According to her, a good period to learn this would be after the final test in group 8, in preparation for secondary education. But also in the seventh grade, these kinds of writing lessons would be a welcome addition. “The question is who you can put this to in the team, because there is often a lack of time and skills to update students in this,” says Kooijman. “Writing teachers can be very suitable to tackle this in that case.”

“Bad handwriting can improve considerably in six weeks,” says writing teacher Rijn van de Rozenberg. “It is striking that usually only about six to eight letters ensure that a text is illegible, but that those letters often differ per student. Recovery is therefore tailor-made, but with lessons once a week and five times a quarter of an hour practice at home, every handwriting advances. The result is usually amazing after six weeks.”

Many teachers do not adhere to the dictation speed at which students can write

According to Van de Rozenberg, motivation is crucial. “Many students have received so many negative comments about their sloppy handwriting that they think they can't change it. By letting them quickly gain positive experiences in a fun way, they see that it is possible and they become motivated.”

In addition to letter knowledge, he believes that a good writing speed is essential for smooth and legible handwriting. “By practicing this, the readability and pace of most students have improved considerably after six weeks,” says Van de Rozenberg. “Many teachers do not adhere to the dictation speed at which students can write. Too fast a speed kills readability. If teachers take this into account, for example in their tests, it would make a huge difference. Teachers themselves also benefit from it, because neater handwriting is easier to check.”

Neat handwriting? Tips for secondary school teachers:

1. Adjust your dictation speed. An average seventh grader reaches a speed of 1 character per second.
2. Take the Quickscan off: this test provides a quick insight into the quality of your students' handwriting (readability and speed)
3. Provide a tailor-made refresher lesson. Often only a few letters are insufficiently automated, but these can differ per student.
4. Use guide lines: they give students tools to write more neatly. It is a misconception that writing bigger would be easier.
5. Also pay attention to the regularity, especially with block writing, a text looks like a diarrhea of ​​letters. Often, students have never learned to use white space between words.
6. Set small goals that bring quick success. The handwriting does not have to be exactly right, as long as it is legible and fluent.

Source: Writing teacher Rijn van de Rozenburg. See for the Quickscan, more tips and exercises: writeNL.nl

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