Digital devices are increasingly replacing traditional handwriting, and both writing and reading are becoming increasingly digitized in the classroom. 3/10
Using a keyboard is now often recommended for young children as it is less demanding and frustrating, allowing them to express themselves in written form earlier. 4/10
However, handwriting training has not only been found to improve spelling accuracy and better memory and recall, but also to facilitate letter recognition and understanding. 5/10
When writing by hand, brain connectivity patterns were far more elaborate than when typewriting on a keyboard, as shown by widespread theta/alpha connectivity coherence patterns between network hubs and nodes in parietal and central brain regions. 6/10
Existing literature indicates that connectivity patterns in these brain areas and at such frequencies are crucial for memory formation and for encoding new information and, therefore, are beneficial for learning. 7/10
This was one of the reasons we homeschooled! I still tell my students of all ages that typing on a keyboard doesn't help with neural connections like longhand writing. In math I want my students to also use colored pencils to show the structure of the problems and their processes for solving them.
I've been told I have unusually neat handwriting for a doctor, but I recall (as a kid introduced to computers at 3 years of age) my Year 1 teacher strongly recommend my parents to keep me away from typing for a year. (1/2)
Really? In college, I found that typing up notes allowed for far better retention than not doing so. And it made for better retention than handwriting the notes too (especially in my cramped illegible writing style). But then reading activates the brain more than watching TV does so it is believable
They only look at college students, who I must assume grew up with writing by hand in school. Could typing also have high brain connectivity if it's the primary form of writing you use in your developmental years?
👀 at the methods, the typing condition was using one finger on the right hand to type vs use their whole right hand to write a word (???) this doesn’t seem like a fair comparison. One is natural and learned over more than a decade, the other is unnatural and only part of the whole process?
If the hypothesis is that use of fine motor control for notetaking increases connectivity and improves memory, I would expect a task comparing two UNfamiliar and novel modes of notetaking, one that involves fine motor and the other coarse.
But handwriting inherently involves more fine motor control than typing. And is practiced far longer with less variability among college students than typing. This may also lead to wider conn.
Will the result hold when looking at those who favored typing for conveying ideas far longer than writing?
Comments
I find the 4th post very interesting anecdotally.
I've been told I have unusually neat handwriting for a doctor, but I recall (as a kid introduced to computers at 3 years of age) my Year 1 teacher strongly recommend my parents to keep me away from typing for a year. (1/2)
After a year of staying away from JumpStart typing games, my handwriting became more legible, and it stays that way.
The more time I spend typing letters or manuscripts, I feel my handwriting worsen, again. (2/2)
Unless I’m missing something?
A single tap on a key to create an entire letter cannot set the brain working and connecting so much.
Will the result hold when looking at those who favored typing for conveying ideas far longer than writing?