Handwriting makes learning faster and more efficient than typing or watching videos.
- Participants who learned the Arabic alphabet through writing needed two sessions compared to six for those who learned through typing and videos.
- The handwriting group ended up with more skills needed for expert adult level reading and spelling.
Although handwriting is increasingly eclipsed by the ease of computers, we shouldn’t be so quick to throw away pencils and paper. A new study reveals that handwriting is the best technique for learning to read. Published on June 29 in the magazine Psychological Scienceshe suggests that penciling improves the speed and efficiency of learning to read compared to writing on a screen or watching videos.
Faster learning
The researchers conducted their study on a group of 42 volunteers who learned the Arabic alphabet. They were divided into three groups: writers, typists and video watchers. Each of the participants learned the letters one by one by watching videos of their handwriting and hearing names and sounds. After being introduced to each letter, the three groups then learned what they just saw and heard in different ways. The video group had a flash of a letter on the screen and had to say if it was the same letter they had just seen. Typists should find the letter on the keyboard. Writers had to copy the letter with pen and paper.
After six sessions, each of the participants was able to recognize letters and had a very low error rate. But this level was reached much more quickly by the group which learned by handwriting since from the second session, most were able to reproduce the alphabet.
A more complete learning
In a second step, the researchers wanted to determine to what extent, if any, the groups could generalize this new knowledge. The objective was no longer just to remember the letters but to be able to use them in writing, to spell new words or even to be able to read unknown words.
In each of these categories, the group that learned by handwriting performed better than the others. “The main lesson is that although they were all good at recognizing letters, the writing training was the best on all other measures. And it took them less time to get there”, noted Robert Wiley, author of the study. The handwriting group ended up with more skills needed for expert adult level reading and spelling. “This is because handwriting reinforces visual and auditory lessonscontinues Robert Wiley. The simple act of writing by hand provides a perceptual-motor experience that unifies what is learned about letters – their shapes, sounds and motor planes – which in turn creates richer knowledge and real learning. more complete.”
