In
today's technological age, when laptops and tablets have become more popular
and everyone emphasizes typing on the keyboard; handwriting skills are slowly
fading away; it raises questions about the usefulness of handwriting skills in
the future.
You
may not know that handwriting plays an important role in brain development;
specially on Children's Brain. New brain research shows that the brains of
children are more active when handwriting than typing on a computer keyboard;
it helps children learn more and remember better.
According
to Neuropsychology Professor Audrey van der Meer at NTNU (Norwegian University
of Science and Technology )- "The use of pen and paper gives the brain
more 'hooks' to hang your memories on. Writing by hand creates much more
activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain. A lot of senses are activated
by pressing the pen on paper, seeing the letters you write and hearing the
sound you make while writing. These sense experiences create contact between
different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning. We can learn
better and remember better through writing"-(source: ScienceDaily)
Today
schools are going more and more digital and no longer teaching children to
write by hand in favour of digital learning, so children spend the most time
online.
Even
some teachers believe that keyboards create less frustration for children. They
point out that children can write longer texts now, and are more motivated to
write because they experience greater mastery with a keyboard. They think
keyboards should be used in school because children see them everywhere
outside. Also, keyboarding is easier and gives children a sense of reward more
quickly as they achieve mastery. But this may be another part of life where
there are rewards for greater effort and overcoming frustration.
According
to an EdWeek Research Center survey, 84% of teachers said that elementary
schools in their district had at least one device per child by March 2021. Much
of the technology that was implemented in response to the pandemic still
remains.
Childrens’
reliance on electronics often has negative effects on handwriting too. As
children reach school age, they are required to possess particular
pencil-holding and -use skills. They are also expected to possess a vast array
of other functional abilities.
Why handwriting is important for kids,
Yes,
digital learning is important, but it is “vital to maintain handwriting
practice in school”, as it creates a vibrant platform for learning. Handwriting
may appear to be a simple undertaking, a wide range of core abilities are
necessary for its successful completion.
A
child can focus on the higher-level features of writing composition and content
when he or she can create legible writing with ease, speed, and minimal
conscious effort. Children who have mastered it are more skilled and
imaginative authors. Numerous standardised evaluations are based on written
work, especially timed writing.
However,
Learning to write by hand is a bit of a slower process, but it's important for
children to go through the tiring phase of learning to write by hand. The
intricate hand movements and the shaping of letters are beneficial in several
ways. If you use a keyboard, you use the same movement for each letter. Writing
by hand requires control of your fine motor skills and senses. It's important
to put the brain in a learning state as often as possible. Writing letters on
paper further develops and encodes new neural connections, which helps with
future recognition of these letters.
Benefits of handwriting,
Many
studies show that there are several reasons why writing by hand is a better
option-
Writing
by hands boost brain power
Boost
cognitive skills
Increases
focus
Improves
memory
Sharpens
aging minds
Improves
creativity
Promotes
sequencing and estimation
Creates
a calming effect
How handwriting stimulates thinking,
"Handwriting
increases neural activity in certain sections of the brain, similar to
meditation"- according to Prof. Virginia Berninger of the University of Washington,
who used functional magnetic resonance imaging to find that writing by hand
activates the parts of the cerebral cortex responsible for memory and learning
new information. This can be seen in the children’s work.
The
researcher asked elementary school students of the second, fourth and sixth
grades to write short essays by hand or on the computer and then analyzed the
resulting texts. The result said- second-graders wrote more words faster, by
pen than by keyboard; fourth- and sixth-graders were more likely to write
complete sentences with a pen.
Even
young children are more creative when using a pen. Other research found that
kids produce more ideas when writing by hand. Essays produced by hand were more
organized and insightful and had better grammar.
"It
turned out that works, essays, for example, written by hand, were more
imaginative and lexically diverse. A student becomes an experienced essay
creator capable of expounding on a topic in a reasoned, coherent, and complete
manner, which also affects thinking positively.
Students who write with a pen are able to reconstruct the main idea of
the lecture and the conclusions that followed from it more easily. That’s
because the brain works harder to write"- Prof. Berninger says.
Colby Wiley, PhD, a pediatric neuropsychologist at Northwestern Medicine Delnor
Hospital, said-"When writing by hand, you are not only activating the
motor cortex to make your hand physically write, but also motor planning
aspects of the visual cortex to visualize the letters in your mind, language
networks in the central and temporal lobes to actually communicate, and
networks associated with reading and spelling. These processes tie into the
parts of the brain that have to do with learning and memory."
Cursive writing boosts cognitive skills in
children,
Typing
and printing don’t offer the same benefits as cursive writing. Learning to
write in cursive is an important tool for cognitive development. Cursive
writing actually trains the brain to use different parts of the brain for
different functions, which helps with work efficiency.
When
a child learns to read and write in cursive through consistent practice and
repetition, they must use fine motor skills with visual and tactile processing
abilities. The physical touch of the pen to the paper combined with the
repetitive process improves both the cognitive function and development.
Cursive
handwriting stimulates brain synapses and synchronicity between the left and
right hemispheres, something absent from printing and typing. This is due to
the fact that it requires more complicated physical and cognitive abilities.
Because it stimulates the visual perception of letters, it enhances reading
fluency as well. It predicts success in other areas since it has a beneficial
influence on grades.
It
is seen that students who use cursive for the essay portion of the SAT score
slightly higher than those who printed, which experts believe is because the
speed and efficiency of writing in cursive allowed the students to focus on the
content of their essays. Learning cursive also may be helpful for people with
dyslexia.
Results
from several studies have shown that handwriting is far better than typing for
learning new letters and symbols, because activities such as printing letters
by hand may help the brain learn. When people write letters by hand, they
actively see and feel the letter being written or can see several different
versions of that letter and pay more attention to what they are doing.
Undoubtedly,
technology is a wonderful thing, but we can not ignore this fact that
handwriting is essential to the production of innovative, well-crafted content,
affecting both the flow and quality of the composition. Experts say handwriting
is a fundamental skill that contributes to literacy.
Without
legible and rapid handwriting, pupils will miss learning opportunities,
underachieve, and possibly fall behind. Many formal qualifications continue to
evaluate candidates primarily based on their handwriting.
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