Handwriting beats typing and watching videos for learning to read

Date:
July 8, 2021
Source:
Johns Hopkins University
Summary:
Though writing by hand is increasingly being eclipsed by the ease
of computers, a new study finds we shouldn't be so quick to throw
away the pencils and paper: handwriting helps people learn certain
skills surprisingly faster and significantly better than learning
the same material through typing or watching videos.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Though writing by hand is increasingly being eclipsed by the ease of
computers, a new study finds we shouldn't be so quick to throw away
the pencils and paper: handwriting helps people learn certain skills surprisingly faster and significantly better than learning the same
material through typing or watching videos.


==========================================================================
"The question out there for parents and educators is why should our
kids spend any time doing handwriting," says senior author Brenda Rapp,
a Johns Hopkins University professor of cognitive science. "Obviously,
you're going to be a better hand-writer if you practice it. But since
people are handwriting less then maybe who cares? The real question is:
Are there other benefits to handwriting that have to do with reading
and spelling and understanding? We find there most definitely are."
The work appears in the journal Psychological Science.

Rapp and lead author Robert Wiley, a former Johns Hopkins University Ph.D.

student who is now a professor at the University of North Carolina,
Greensboro, conducted an experiment in which 42 people were taught the
Arabic alphabet, split into three groups of learners: writers, typers
and video watchers.

Everyone learned the letters one at a time by watching videos of them
being written along with hearing names and sounds. After being introduced
to each letter, the three groups would attempt to learn what they just saw
and heard in different ways. The video group got an on-screen flash of
a letter and had to say if it was the same letter they'd just seen. The
typers would have to find the letter on the keyboard. The writers had
to copy the letter with pen and paper.

At the end, after as many as six sessions, everyone could recognize the
letters and made few mistakes when tested. But the writing group reached
this level of proficiency faster than the other groups -- a few of them
in just two sessions.



==========================================================================
Next the researchers wanted to determine to what extent, if at all, the
groups could generalize this new knowledge. In other words, they could
all recognize the letters, but could anyone really use them like a pro,
by writing with them, using them to spell new words and using them to
read unfamiliar words? The writing group was better -- decisively --
in all of those things.

"The main lesson is that even though they were all good at recognizing
letters, the writing training was the best at every other measure. And
they required less time to get there," Wiley said.

The writing group ended up with more of the skills needed for expert
adult- level reading and spelling. Wiley and Rapp say it's because
handwriting reinforces the visual and aural lessons. The advantage has
nothing to do with penmanship -- it's that the simple act of writing by
hand provides a perceptual-motor experience that unifies what is being
learned about the letters (their shapes, their sounds, and their motor
plans), which in turn creates richer knowledge and fuller, true learning,
the team says.

"With writing, you're getting a stronger representation in your mind
that lets you scaffold toward these other types of tasks that don't in
any way involve handwriting," Wiley said.



========================================================================== Although the participants in the study were adults, Wiley and Rapp expect they'd see the same results in children. The findings have implications
for classrooms, where pencils and notebooks have taken a backseat in
recent years to tablets and laptops, and teaching cursive handwriting
is all but extinct.

The findings also suggest that adults trying to learn a language with a different alphabet should supplement what they're learning through apps
or tapes with good old-fashioned paperwork.

Wiley, for one, is making sure the kids in his life are stocked up on
writing supplies.

"I have three nieces and a nephew right now and my siblings ask me should
we get them crayons and pens? I say yes, let them just play with the
letters and start writing them and write them all the time. I bought
them all finger paint for Christmas and told them let's do letters."
The work was supported by the Science of Learning Institute at Johns
Hopkins University, and the Dingwall Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
in the Cognitive, Clinical, and Neural Foundations of Language.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Johns_Hopkins_University. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Robert W. Wiley, Brenda Rapp. The Effects of Handwriting
Experience on
Literacy Learning. Psychological Science, 2021; 095679762199311
DOI: 10.1177/0956797621993111 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/07/210708111508.htm

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