Covid-19 is still impacting our lives without our deliberate realization. The NCERT study of schoolchildren found that in Bihar alone 65% of the children could not write at all – one of the adverse effects of online education during the pandemic.

 This study found that around 75 percent of the children had their handwriting turning uglier. Out of these, 65 percent of them almost forgot how to write and from where to begin.

The startling facts came to light during the All India School Education Survey conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an autonomous organization of the Government of India set up to assist in the qualitative improvement of school education in the country.

The survey conducted between March 2020 and February 2021 involved schoolchildren from some 10,000 government and private schools. The children involved in the survey included those in Grades four to Grade 10.

The study found that the online classes left the children’s handwriting turning messy as they focused their attention mainly on listening to the teachers rather than noting down in their notebooks.

“The closure of schools for a long time as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak has left a bitter impact on the writing skills of children. The speed of writing has also reduced among most children. They are unable to write further after completing two-three lines,” said Arun Kumar, a member of the All India School Education Survey, NCERT.

(Source: Gulf News)

Given the study and the research conducted, kids are miserable with the demands of the after covid teaching-learning and the teaching-learning during covid that made them do without writing. The resulting decline in good handwriting, speed of writing, and articulation of writing while thinking has gone downhill.

How can parents tackle this?

1. Engage your child to write properly and neatly.
2. Set up a time to write and reward the child.
3. Give prompts for different topics of interest to the child
4. Encourage the child to make a one-page poster of different topics
5. Giving children challenging topics as they become better and more confident in writing
6. If your child has buddies, as parents you can have a buddy system of writing together but not copying. This can motivate the child to write with a friend.
7. Bring writing worksheets for kids to work on or encourage them to make cards for birthdays or anniversaries. Writing in them can help them write neatly. These are exciting ways to think and learn new words and write too.
8. Some books also promote writing skills in kids. Writing is Fun by Jeanne Perret is one such book.
9. Reading books also helps writing. Try illustrated books for your children to begin with.
10. Extole the benefits of writing in the digital age. Give scientific reasons that writing promotes fine motor movements and dexterity. 

These 10 tips can be simple and small ways to get your child into writing. Give your child a few months and then see the change gradually.