April 2019
Media response to the results of the STEP 2019 study: more time for handwriting!
The serious problems that German schoolchildren have with handwriting are also an important topic in the media. Numerous reports published the results of the STEP study carried out by the Schreibmotorik Institut in cooperation with the Verband Bildung und Erziehung VBE and its 16 national associations.
One in three girls and over half of boys have difficulties with handwriting. Only four percent of more than 2,000 primary and secondary school teachers are satisfied with their pupils’ handwriting. Three quarters of them note a direct correlation between handwriting and academic performance as a whole, 84 percent between handwriting and spelling, two thirds between handwriting and reading.
Institute director Dr. Marianela Diaz Meyer also emphasises the significance of handwriting for children’s academic and professional future. “Writing by hand makes you smarter. It promotes memory retention, comprehension and creativity – qualities that will continue to be in demand, even in the age of digitalisation. When we talk to companies about the jobs of the future, we can see that designing innovative products and processes is initially done by hand. It is not until the second or third step that the complete design is processed on a computer.”