Stressing the importance of good handwriting

Children are texting, tapping and typing on keyboards more than ever, leaving less time to master that old-fashioned skill known as handwriting.

The benefits of gripping and moving a pen or pencil reach beyond communication. Emerging research shows that handwriting increases brain activity, hones fine motor skills, and can predict a child’s academic success in ways that keyboarding can’t.

“For children, handwriting is extremely important. Not how well they do it, but that they do it and practice it,” said Karin Harman James, an assistant professor in the department of psychological and brain sciences at Indiana University. “Typing does not do the same thing.”

Here’s how handwriting makes its mark:

HELPS BRAIN DEVELOPMENT
Handwriting can change how children learn and their brains develop. Indiana University researchers used neuroimaging scans to measure brain activation in preliterate preschool children who were shown letters. One group of children then practiced printing letters; the other children practiced seeing and saying the letters. After four weeks of training, the kids who practiced writing showed brain activation similar to an adult’s, said James, the study’s lead researcher. The printing practice also improved letter recognition, which is the No. 1 predictor of reading ability at age 5.

HELPS GRADES
Good handwriting can mean better grades. Studies show that the same mediocre paper is graded much higher if the handwriting is neat.

IT’S FASTER
Handwriting is faster. Researchers who tested second, fourth- and sixth-graders found that children compose essays more prolifically — and faster — when using a pen rather than a keyboard. In addition, fourth and sixth-graders wrote more complete sentences when they used a pen, according to the study, led by Virginia Berninger, a University of Washington professor of educational psychology who studies normal writing development and writing disabilities. Her research also has shown that forming letters by hand might engage our thinking brains differently than pressing down on a key.

AIDS MEMORY
Handwriting aids memory. If you write yourself a list or a note — then lose it — you’re much more likely to remember what you wrote than if you just tried to memorize it, said occupational therapist Katya Feder, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa School of Rehabilitation.

INSPIRES CONFIDENCE
Handwriting proficiency inspires confidence. The more we practice a skill such as handwriting, the stronger the motor pathways become until the skill becomes automatic. Once it’s mastered, children can move on to focus on the subject, rather than worry about how to form letters.

ENGAGES BRAIN
Handwriting engages different brain circuits than keyboarding. The contact, direction and pressure of the pen or pencil send the brain a message. And the repetitive process of handwriting “integrates motor pathways into the brain,” said Feder. When it becomes automatic or learned, “there’s almost a groove in the pathways,” she said. The more children write the more pathways are laid down. But if they write them poorly, then they’re getting a faulty pathway, so you want to go back and correct it, Feder said.

No more failure; Only success
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