review: International Symposium

Event Review 17 February 2014

Expert Meeting at the Schreibmotorik Institut: What is Good Handwriting?

International dialogue with scientists and specialists from the fields of education, health care and sports

The kick-off event for a series of planned expert meetings organized by the Schreibmotorik Institut took place at hl-Studios in Erlangen on february 17th 2014. The current state of research concerning handwriting and learning to write was central at the international expert day. Specialists from various disciplines discussed the scientific foundations for learning to write, its complexity and the role of writing motor skills.

German scientific researchers presented the results of a study on the graphomotor skills of children starting school and analyzed meaningful writing tasks in early education. Impressive reports from diagnostics and therapy provided a fascinating insight into everyday practice.

It's all about Motor Skills

The Swiss example of how new school writing knowledge is implemented in current teaching methodology was as interesting as the contributions from the scientists from the Netherlands and Belgium, where differentiating analysis parameters are applied. "Mistakes are desirable. They are an important learning instrument!", this was a fundamental conclusion from the point of view of sports science, and one which stimulated constructive discussions among the experts.

"Writing originates from movement, which is why we place the writing movement at the core of learning to write". For the sensorimotor expert Dr. Marquardt, the central requirement for the modern teaching of writing is therefore that: "the scientific knowledge about motor learning should be systematically implemented. This will require a change of attitude in many places!"

This is precisely what the Schreibmotorik Institut is advocating: a new method for teaching writing in which current written language acquisition models are supplemented in the area of motor skills.