Definitely ‘News’ ? Handwriting in exams is too ‘tiring’ for students, headmaster warns“

I'm all for this- several of my family have some form of disability, and/or poor motor skills, which means very illegible hand writing- and although it should not 'go against them' as one of my sons tutors said, it unfortunately still does, especially if the examiner cannot read it correctly, and especially if they are in mainstream school, trying their hardest, and yet the examiner doesn't know or realise the child has 'problems' with writing.

My youngest son also kept running out of time in exams, because he was taking so much time & care over 'improving' his handwriting.But on a computer he is a whizz.

I clearly remember the queues at the hand-basins after written exams in my school-days. We were all holding our hand and wrist under the cold tap as long as possible to numb the pain, after a three or four hour paper.

At university, I took my typewriter with me to all written papers, as if you wrote by hand there were four carbon copies that had to be legible. This was physically impossible to me.

Since the advent of the laptop, no secondary school or higher education has insisted on handwritten papers in Denmark. The internet connection to the examination hall is simply blocked to deter online cheating and pupils are asked as far as possible to either bring their own printer, or to finish their paper at least half-an-hour before the exam ends, so there is time to print it.

As an examiner, I can assure you it is much easier and quicker to correct typed papers than hand-written ones.

I haven't read all the way through, so, sorry, if I am repeating a previous comment. MaizieD mentioned handwritten lecture notes being linked to superior recall. It's because handwriting feeds into kinesthetic memory. Anyone who has dyslexic offspring may have used the multi-sensory approach to learning spelling. It goes... look, say, cover, write. This helps the learner to 'fasten' the information into a variety of working memories.
Hope this helps.

MaizieD

^I read my 12 year old grandson's homework last night and I was absolutely appalled. I found half of it difficult to understand. In fact his writing was so much better when he was in primary school.^

I used to work with Y7s. Their handwriting was, on the whole, lovely and clear for about the first term. Then it rapidly degenerated.

Why is that I wonder?

"... has technology rendered swathes of handwritten pages a thing of the past?"

Well, yes. If the computers somehow went away, we'd soon get used to scrawling again. But, as things, stand, anything beyond a shopping list is probably going to be typed.

Wasn't it wasteful to use all that paper in schools rather than re-usable slates! :-)

Ali08

Haha! That'll help the little buggers cheat better, with no handwriting to compare!!
They'll have spellchecker so you can't tell that they can't spell!
I think it's so teachers can read them better.

Handwriting has become a thing of the past, goodbye pens, pretty paper and lovely letters!

I don't think anyone is saying that handwriting is to be banned. People can still have pens and pretty paper. It's just been suggested that writing for hours at a time is maybe not the best way for young people to show what they know in an exam situation.

As for the 'little buggers' cheating - I have a higher opinion of young people than you seem to.

If you don't touch type it will take a long time to complete an exam. I am much faster hand writing than typing.
Why not allow both?

You really do not have to touch type to use a keyboard quickly. I write a lot and I get far more done on a keyboard than I ever could by hand. In addition, I can reflect, edit, cut, paste and refine what I have to say.

I am very late to this, so may be repeating something, but wanted to add my PoV. Whilst we think of these exams as being mostly taken by young people, many are taken by older people, especially in these days of re-training and picking up education.
I was required, in my 50s, to sit an exam that insisted on 'handwriting only'. I did practice papers and found it very difficult. I had no 'medical exemption' just the usual 'wear & tear' on my hands.
I went to seek help from the University special needs department and they were fantastic. They arranged for me to have a board that I could position at an angle to write on (I had to show it had nothing hidden!) and spoke to the examining board, to find out what was acceptable in written English, so that I could write the minimum
I submitted a practice paper that was very hard for me to write as it was 'bulletin points' rather than 'proper English', but it was accepted as they were testing technical knowledge, not my sentence construction!
I passed! But it did make me consider the whole issue of 'handwriting'.

A small part of this story is that whilst sorting this out, I was able to help some young students with my tips for memorising anatomy from 40 years previously!

Might have something to do with the number of children who do not know how to hold a pen or pencil properly - they are simply not taught the correct way to hold a pen to be least tiring on the hand. My little DGD held a pencil beautifully and was able to make very small marks until she went to school and formed the most peculiar grip - with the result that her writing sprawls all over the page. I mentioned it to her teacher, to find that the teacher didn’t hold her pen properly either!

I still believe all should be taught to write. However with computing now so prevalent keyboard skills are essential. Also, some children have writing issues, using a keyboard especially for exams could offer equity for all.

Josianne

MaizieD

I read my 12 year old grandson's homework last night and I was absolutely appalled. I found half of it difficult to understand. In fact his writing was so much better when he was in primary school.

I used to work with Y7s. Their handwriting was, on the whole, lovely and clear for about the first term. Then it rapidly degenerated.

Why is that I wonder?

I can only assume it was because they weren't pulled up on sloppy handwriting by their teachers and that children at secondary have a variety of teachers, some of whom they like and some they don't. So they don't feel quite such the need to please each one of them that they did with their single class teacher in primary.

They'll have spellchecker so you can't tell that they can't spell!

I understood that children allowed to use keyboarding in exams had their spell checkers disabled.

Anyway, spellcheckers don't always help. If a child has spelled a word really wrongly the spell checker can come up with a completely different word from the one they intended. I've seen it happen! The child accepted every spell check version of the incorrect word and the end result was a load of garbage...

Oh the poor babies!
I remember sitting in lessons where the teacher would dictate something for us all to take down (it saved them having to write it all up on the board for us to copy, plus they could control the speed we wrote it down) and as much as I have very neat, legible handwriting, I'm left-handed and as every southpaw will agree, handwriting is far more difficult for us as we have to 'push' the pen whereas right-handed people 'pull' the pen across the page.
In the 70s and 80s, we were told that we would be marked down both in class and exams if our handwriting was scruffy or difficult to decipher and indeed for poor spelling/grammar.
I do agree that these days, multiple choice exams should be done online for ease of marking and as such I guess long laborious essays could be too, but time allowances for said essays would need to be slashed in light of the time it takes to type a 1,000 word piece of work compared to handwriting it, many students can easily type at a rate of 70+ words a minute, even 50 wpm is fairly easily achieved by kids these days, whereas handwriting takes maybe 4 times this long.
For exams where shorter written pieces are required, I would say there's still a place for handwritten papers.
Clearly, for computerised exams, spellchecker and internet access would have to be removed, although I would say that spelling and grammar should still be part of the marking criteria otherwise what is the point of teaching kids these skills?
These days, I'm grateful to always have access to and choice to use both pens/paper and my phone/laptop as sometimes one is quicker than the other or long/short-term storage of information will determine which I use, as well as the daily state of my arthritis.

I would also add that having worked on computers for a couple of decades before I was forced to retire at 41, the arthritis was exacerbated to the point where I've had to have bones removed from my thumbs to help with pain and movement and I've also had to have carpal tunnel surgery too.
My surgeons did say to me that 20 years from now, the amount of people needing to have these surgeries will go through the roof because people (especially kids) spend so much time 'typing' or playing games with two thumbs on their phones, and cases of RSI will also likely explode due to computer use, both of which could be slowed down by people typing less and doing a little handwriting for a change.

As a retired English teacher I have say that some pupils used to find breathing in and out a great trouble. What are we going to do to alleviate their suffering?

(Rolls eyes.)

I came to thank the antiquated attitudes in my junior school. I learnt to write/print left handed but was made to do right handed ‘joined up’ writing in junior school. My more liberated secondary school allowed me join up my left handed printing. Being ambidextrous certainly came in handy during the myriad of exams I’ve taken although it did look as though two separate people had written the papers

MOnica, I have long realised that I am mildly dyspraxic and I always found physical handwriting tiring. I was sixteen before I learned how to write neatly. When I started school, I found reading very easy, maths too, and could spell anything in my head but I was between one and two years behind with writing. I am extremely mixed handed - hockey, for instance, was even more difficult for me because hockey sticks are made for right handed people. I asked my mother a while ago if I was very undecided as a small child about which hand l should use. She replied that I probably was but “of course we encouraged the right hand.” I find so many things easier with my left hand that l wonder if, left to my own devices, l would have been left handed. I write with my right hand but find typing on my tablet or phone much easier with the left. However, mixed handedness has proved a blessing when playing the piano or violin. As I grew older l I wrote essays and, when doing O and A level music and my degree in music l had to write music out by hand. For my final project this was orchestrating a three page piano piece for full symphony orchestra (48 parts). When it came to writing the finished work for presentation, I wrote it in pencil before going over everything in black ink. Every line (including the stems on every note) was written with a ruler. When it was bound l wrote the title, the composer’s name and orchestrated by me in Letraset - remember that? A computer would have saved a great deal of time yet writing by hand helped settle my thoughts.

Well I must be such an old fogey. I write letters regularly and just send off an 11 page one to my old boss. He is literally the only person I know who uses a fountain pen though!

Fernhillnana, you probably kept on writing by hand so your stamina is undiminished. It’s another example of use it or lose it.
I don’t find it tiring to hand write things, but I love technology because I can correct errors or swap paragraphs without having to rewrite.

I'm in my sixties and I learned to type at 14y.o. (evening classes) so I find typing far easier. These days I find it very difficult to write neatly due to arthrits and simply lacking in holding a pen/pencil, so I can understand kids not wanting to handwrite.

My daughter managed to break both arms 2 days into her GCSE exams and couldn't write. She was allocated a 'scribe' to whom she had to dictate. She still did well. (She started at minus 5 % as this was deducted from maximum marks to take into account potential of unintentional benefit from a scribe).

Had she been allowed to use a voice programme on a pc life would have been much easier and cheaper.

Fernhillnana, I regularly write letters by hand, and have written all of my Xmas cards by hand (and I put notes in all of them) but I can do this at my own pace. It was writing within a deadline that I found difficult in my 50s.

I enjoyed writing my Christmas cards this year.

My son bought me a calligraphy set for my birthday and I have loved doing the swirly letters and writing upper and lower case letters in a way that I never have before.

Simple pleasures!

Septimia

If children don't learn to write because keyboard skills are considered more important, what will happen about signing legal documents? Will they have to provide a fingerprint - or 'make their mark' (a cross) like illiterate people did in the past?

Also, typing in exams is likely to take longer. I once invigilated an exam for a girl who had to use a computer because, for some reason I can't remember, she was unable to write. She had to have extra time in order to complete the paper.

I suspect that the girl that you invigilated for was, in fact, dyslexic - hence the extra time. My DS (& DH & DGS) are all dyslexic, with problems with sequencing affecting all of them. DS had to handwrite his exams, and was allowed an extra 15 mins on every hour (so 45 minsb