23 January 2017
Deutschlandfunk Nova: Dr. Marianela Diaz Meyer in a radio interview about Handwriting Day
For Handwriting day, an article from the Deutschlandfunk Nova editorial conference critically examined the topic of handwriting.
The author of the article, Stefan Beuting, thinks handwriting is a wonderful thing, but has never really warmed to it himself. Nowadays, many adults who hardly ever write by hand feel the same way. A teachers’ survey conducted by the Schreibmotorik Institut in 2015 showed that many children also have problems with handwriting: 31 per cent of girls and over 50 per cent of boys. However, it is not only school children that have to write often – students, particularly law students, do too. And it was this group that Stefan Beuting chose to talk to.
Problems caused by incorrect pressure, even when typing
For one student, writing is a very painful exercise – she even developed carpal tunnel syndrome, which required surgery. Many children and adults do not hold the pen correctly and exercise excessive pressure or experience cramping when writing because they are holding the pen too tightly. To stop it getting to this point, the Schreibmotorik Institut is focussing on improving conditions in writing lessons. For prolonged writing activities such as university exams, deficits in writing motor skills become clearly noticeable. The strain on the fingers and wrist becomes so intense that it hurts.
The aim of the Schreibmotorik Institut is to enable each child to produce flowing, efficient and legible handwriting without tiring. Because handwriting has clear advantages: “There are studies that prove that students can remember hand-written information better than typed information,” says Dr. Marianela Diaz Meyer: “Furthermore, we communicate using handwriting. It is an expression of our individual personalities.”