We live in a digital age. Computers have pervaded every aspect of modern life and the advancing march of technology shows no signs of faltering. It is inarguable that being able to use and control technology is as fundamental today as being able to read and write, but in a world where keyboards have all but replaced pen and paper outside of school, is teaching our children to write still relevant?
The argument for education is, and has always been, that it is necessary to give children the skills they will need to be a successful adult. While children have long asked when they will ever use trigonometry or be required to understand Shakespeare in the ‘real world’, the case for handwriting has, until relatively recently, been obvious.
Being able to write a legible letter or note used to be paramount in the quest to communicate successfully both at home and in the work place, but – as research commissioned by Docmail, an online stationer, revealed – the convenience of an email or text message has long since replaced the hand-written word. One in three of the 2000 survey respondents said that they had found no cause to write anything by hand in the past six months. Even things such as creating a shopping list or taking notes in a meeting are ever increasingly tasks that are performed on a laptop or tablet; with an ‘app for everything’ the need to reach for a pen has all but disappeared.
In light of this, it is unsurprising perhaps that some education authorities in the US have already demoted the teaching of handwriting in their schools, no longer requiring it as mandatory learning. It seems the UK set to follow suit, with I Pads and personal laptops becoming staple equipment in our classrooms, but the argument for teaching of handwriting is far more complex than its relevance as a stand-alone skill in a digital age.
Experts on writing argue that using a pen and using a keyboard are very different cognitive processes. While handwriting itself might arguably be redundant, the importance of basic literacy remains unchallenged. The initial stage of learning to read involves graphological recognition; it is necessary to remember and recognise letters and combinations of letters in order to read, and subsequently write, a language coherently.
A study by Karen James at Indiana University in 2012 demonstrated that the process of forming a letter shape by hand increased the brain’s recognition of that letter.
The study took children who had not yet learned to read or write and presented them with a letter or shape on an index card. They were then asked to reproduce the letter in one of three ways: trace the image with a dotted outline, draw it freehand on a blank sheet of paper, or type it on a computer. When the children were then placed in a brain scanner and shown the image again, the children that had drawn the letter freehand exhibited increased brain activity in the reading and writing areas of the brain while those who had typed or traced the letter showed little or no activity in this area.
Further research in a study by Virginia Berninger at the University of Washington found that brain imaging of people writing by hand, when asked to come up with ideas for a composition, showed higher neurological activity than those who were typing on a keyboard. The process of writing by hand can be scientifically proven to increase cognitive function and arguably stimulate thought and understanding, making the implications of ceasing to teach it far wider reaching than the ability to hand write a memo or shopping list.
Aside from stimulating recognition, independent thought and comprehension – all very sound arguments for the teaching of handwriting on their own – some neurologists and psychologists go a step further, arguing that teaching handwriting also teachers self control and patience. The argument for typing being faster and easier, and therefore more accessible especially to children with special educational needs, is as much a case for handwriting as against it. Reinforcing instant gratification and lack of effort in our children is hardly needed, nor is it beneficial to overall development.
Handwriting as a skill in itself is inarguably redundant in the 21st century, but the process has never been more relevant. There is no known way to better coordinate the left and right brain, stimulating the reasoning skills and comprehension that are the ‘holy grail’ of teaching in an education environment obsessed with testing and measuring. Failing to teach our children to write means impeding their ability to read, understand and – vitally – think.
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