National Handwriting Day
PROGRAM: “IN A WORD”
EPISODE: NATIONAL HANDWRITING DAY
[5 TO 10 SEC OF MUSIC]
[FADE MUSIC]
I’m Candace Hastings with “In a Word,” your weekly communication tip.
January 23rd has been designated “National Handwriting Day,” but I’m wondering if the cause for this celebration will fade away entirely over the next few years. Handwriting, after all, is becoming increasingly scarce. The Common Core standards for education, for instance, require teaching handwriting only into the First Grade. By Second Grade, the emphasis shifts to keyboarding skills.
But, according to studies of how we learn to read and write, there are some reasons to buck this trend.
Research indicates that the physical act of handwriting stimulates brain activity that helps children learn letters. On the other hand, pecking away at a keyboard doesn’t appear to have the same effect. An experiment carried out at the University of Marseille found that the motor memory evoked when we write by hand helps us recognize letters because handwriting is typically slower than typing. The extra time spent engaged in handwriting also seemed to help students learn better.
A 2012 study at Indiana University produced similar findings: children learning to read and write performed better when they wrote letters by hand instead of by typing or tracing them. Another study at the University of Washington has shown that typing, printing, and handwriting in cursive produce distinctly different brain patterns in children. Cursive appears to be the best for helping children learn letter recognition.
This same study also showed that children wrote more words and expressed more ideas when they used cursive as opposed to when they typed. Similar results were found in adults learning new alphabets or other sets of symbols, such as those used in mathematics: the adults learned and retained information better when they wrote things by hand.
If technology is largely to blame for the recent decline in handwriting, it may also help bring it back.
Tablets, in particular, are reviving interest in handwriting. There are now apps that teach handwriting via tablets.
If you’re a sentimental person, you might want to defend handwriting because it has a more intimate feel than typing. Many of us still think that there’s no substitute for a handwritten letter. And we consider a typed love letter or thank you note a bit cold or impersonal.
Of course, arguments about the sentimental value of handwritten correspondence probably won’t convince policy makers to keep handwriting in the curriculum.
But the science should.
This has been “In a Word,” a program made possible by the Texas A&M University Writing Center and a production of KAMU FM on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station. For more writing and speaking tips, visit our website at writingcenter.tamu.edu. I’m Candace Hastings, helping you make every word count.
[5 TO 10 SEC OF MUSIC]
EPISODE: NATIONAL HANDWRITING DAY
[5 TO 10 SEC OF MUSIC]
[FADE MUSIC]
I’m Candace Hastings with “In a Word,” your weekly communication tip.
January 23rd has been designated “National Handwriting Day,” but I’m wondering if the cause for this celebration will fade away entirely over the next few years. Handwriting, after all, is becoming increasingly scarce. The Common Core standards for education, for instance, require teaching handwriting only into the First Grade. By Second Grade, the emphasis shifts to keyboarding skills.
But, according to studies of how we learn to read and write, there are some reasons to buck this trend.
Research indicates that the physical act of handwriting stimulates brain activity that helps children learn letters. On the other hand, pecking away at a keyboard doesn’t appear to have the same effect. An experiment carried out at the University of Marseille found that the motor memory evoked when we write by hand helps us recognize letters because handwriting is typically slower than typing. The extra time spent engaged in handwriting also seemed to help students learn better.
A 2012 study at Indiana University produced similar findings: children learning to read and write performed better when they wrote letters by hand instead of by typing or tracing them. Another study at the University of Washington has shown that typing, printing, and handwriting in cursive produce distinctly different brain patterns in children. Cursive appears to be the best for helping children learn letter recognition.
This same study also showed that children wrote more words and expressed more ideas when they used cursive as opposed to when they typed. Similar results were found in adults learning new alphabets or other sets of symbols, such as those used in mathematics: the adults learned and retained information better when they wrote things by hand.
If technology is largely to blame for the recent decline in handwriting, it may also help bring it back.
Tablets, in particular, are reviving interest in handwriting. There are now apps that teach handwriting via tablets.
If you’re a sentimental person, you might want to defend handwriting because it has a more intimate feel than typing. Many of us still think that there’s no substitute for a handwritten letter. And we consider a typed love letter or thank you note a bit cold or impersonal.
Of course, arguments about the sentimental value of handwritten correspondence probably won’t convince policy makers to keep handwriting in the curriculum.
But the science should.
This has been “In a Word,” a program made possible by the Texas A&M University Writing Center and a production of KAMU FM on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station. For more writing and speaking tips, visit our website at writingcenter.tamu.edu. I’m Candace Hastings, helping you make every word count.
[5 TO 10 SEC OF MUSIC]