When Hayley Harrison taught a class of disengaged year 12 boys early this year, she asked them to draw a picture of what writing meant to them.
Most drew themselves in a classroom being ordered to handwrite, thinking that they were bored, that it didn’t make any sense and they didn’t want to do it.
The more you handwrite, the better you process and remember information, says education consultant Hayley Harrison.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“Writing, for them, is this thing that you’re made to do that has no purpose,” Harrison said.
“So my goal this year with my boys is to do the same exercise at the end of the year and see if I can’t get them to see what writing looks like outside of school.”
Handwriting is having something of an identity crisis, and it’s not just students who have grown up typing and texting who are questioning its relevance.
It has been removed from the year 7 Victorian curriculum. The writing part of Australia’s literacy and numeracy test is typed by most students – only grade 3 pupils handwrite it now.
Parents often tell learning difficulties specialist Lisa Price that handwriting is not critical because their child will use technology instead.
Over the past decade, there has been no improvement in the writing abilities of students in grades 3 and 5, and a moderate decline in the writing abilities of students in years 7 and 9, according to the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO).
Students who have a language background other than English, are Indigenous, live outside the capital cities or experience socioeconomic disadvantage tend to perform worse at writing, AERO said.
Girls also consistently outperform boys. Harrison says views that boys can’t write neatly don’t help.
Some parents think handwriting is not critical because their child will use technology instead.Credit: The Age
Messy and illegible handwriting has also contributed to a surge in VCE students seeking special examination arrangements, including typing. In 2022, 8235 students received special arrangements for exams – up from 3221 nine years earlier.
Harrison, who teaches secondary students and teachers, said a dozen students at a single private school had been granted exemptions to type their VCE exams this year.
“You’ve got kids in year 12 who have messy handwriting, they will pay to get a medical certificate to say that they need to type the exam,” she said. “It’s a thing, and it’s not right.”
Learning disabilities – which include dysgraphia, a difficulty with spelling and written expression – are among the top reasons for special examination arrangements.
How adults can help young people with their handwriting
- Make sure your child has good posture when writing: both feet on the floor, back straight, the paper angled and steadied with the non-writing hand.
- Hold the pencil at a low point to have more control and use the tripod finger grip position.
- If your child needs support with their pencil grip, use triangular-shaped pencils and try different-shaped pencil grips.
- Teach letter formations according to starting points and directionality.
- Use the letters taught to practise writing basic words.
- Focus on lowercase letters as they are what the child will use for most words.
- Spacing between words can be taught using a finger.
- Handwriting issues can be an indicator of dysgraphia (difficulty with spelling and written expression).
- The earlier the intervention, the better the outcomes for handwriting. If your child has persistent difficulties with handwriting, consult an occupational therapist.
Source: Learning difficulties specialist Lisa Price
Independent schools accounted for 48.6 per cent of applications citing learning disabilities, despite enrolling the lowest number of total students.
Writing instruction is emphasised in prep through to year 2, peaks in grades 3 to 6, is neglected in years 7 to 10 and then revived in years 11 and 12 to prepare for handwritten exams, a survey of teachers found.
A challenge for young people is that they are expected to be proficient in both typing and handwriting.
Deakin University associate professor Dr Lucinda McKnight said handwriting was important throughout all 13 years of schooling, but students’ skills were waning.
“It’s not like writing matters in primary school and doesn’t matter in secondary school,” she said. “Handwriting is a skill that is declining because students are not practising it as much. The less we handwrite, the less well we’re going to be able to handwrite.”
McKnight said primary schools were still using pen licences, but they had become unfashionable as they were considered punitive.
Handwriting problems often appear in grades 3 or 4, as students progress from learning to write to broader educational tasks. By year 7, students are expected to write fluently.
“We want students’ handwriting, in secondary school certainly, to be quick, automatic and legible, because we know that’s linked to achievement,” McKnight said.
Handwriting is no longer in the year 7 Victorian curriculum.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“We know that fluency in thinking and fluency in writing are intimately linked.”
Susan Perks, principal of St Margaret’s Primary School in East Geelong, said students were entering prep with less-developed fine and gross motor skills and poor pencil grip and posture. The school practises handwriting at least three times a week, focusing on letter formation, line alignment, size, spacing, posture, pencil grip and beginning and ending positions.
AERO’s recently updated report on writing recommends that schools increase the amount of time students spend writing and receiving writing instruction to at least one hour per day. “Writing is complex and it does not develop naturally, so significant amounts of instruction and practice are essential,” it said.
“A lot of schools are 1:1 [one laptop per student] so the kids come, they open up a laptop, they work on the computer. But I know some teachers have a process of when students do drafts, they handwrite it,” Harrison said.
“And many teachers since the advent of generative AI [such as ChatGPT] have turned more to handwriting to authenticate work.
“I always come back to the fact that the more you handwrite, the better you process information, the better you remember it, and that it’s a life skill.”
Harrison said the shift to online-only NAPLAN in 2022 had disadvantaged young students, sent a signal that handwriting was unimportant and made it harder for schools to help students who struggled with writing.
“I don’t think it’s fair to ask year 5 to be touch-typing their writing. I understand reading and maths can be online, but I think writing should be on paper,” she said.
“I also think at years 7 and 9 that handwriting should come into play in NAPLAN and that should be part of their data that schools are given. Because then you can flag a kid in year 7 who has amazing skills in the rest of it and has almost illegible handwriting.”
McKnight said it was never too late for anyone – child or adult – to improve their handwriting.
Victorian teachers learning how to write what was then the new Victorian Cursive Script before it was introduced to schools in 1960.Credit: Fairfax Media
“Parents can improve their own handwriting enormously simply by buying one of the Victorian cursive books you can get from the newsagents and practising,” she said.
An Education Department spokesman said the Victorian curriculum required schools to teach handwriting and build skills so students can use clearly formed and consistent joined letters by the end of year 3.
“The curriculum also includes the use of word-processing programs to develop students’ digital literacy throughout their schooling.”
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