Writing by hand

A week or so ago my Google news alert led me to this article: Handwriting Is Better Than Typing When Learning a New Language, Study Finds  

In a study, a group of 42 adult learners were tasked with learning the Arabic alphabet ab initio.  One group wrote it out on paper, another group typed it on a keyboard, and a third group watched and responded to instructional videos.  It was found that the first group, who were writing the alphabet on paper, learned the letters more quickly than the other groups, and also were more able to apply their new knowledge to other areas, for example using the letters to make words and recognising previously unseen words.

The article goes on to say: 
"The research shows that the benefits of teaching through handwriting go beyond better penmanship: There are also advantages in other areas of language learning. It seems as though the knowledge gets more firmly embedded through writing."

This finding that physically writing on paper benefits and strengthens learning is not new.  A quick Google reveals other similar articles, some dating back 10 years.  Here are some of them, with information pertinent to language learning highlighted:

• Writing by Hand Boosts Brain Activity and Fine Motor Skills, Study Shows (2020)
  "'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,' Wiley [Colbin Wiley PhD] explains. These processes tie into the parts of the brain that have to do with learning and memory."
  
  
• Three Ways That Handwriting With A Pen Positively Affects Your Brain (2016)
  "Handwriting increases neural activity in certain sections of the brain, similar to meditation."
  "Handwriting sharpens the brain and helps us learn....  Apparently sequential hand movements, like those used in handwriting, activate large regions of the brain responsible for thinking, language, healing and working memory."
  
  
• Bring Back Handwriting: It’s Good for Your Brain (2019)
  "The fact that handwriting is a slower process than typing may be another perk....because typing is fast, it tends to cause people to employ a less diverse group of words. Writing longhand allows people more time to come up with the most appropriate word, which may facilitate better self-expression."
  
  
• New study suggests handwriting engages the brain more than typing (2020)
  "Researchers noted that the differences between brain activity while handwriting and typewriting were more pronounced for the adults than for the children, but said the findings still 'provide support for handwriting practice providing beneficial neuronal activation patterns for learning.'"
  
  
• Why Cursive Handwriting Is Good for Your Brain (2020)
  "Data analysis showed that cursive handwriting primed the brain for learning by synchronizing brain waves in the theta rhythm range (4-7 Hz) and stimulating more electrical activity in the brain's parietal lobe and central regions. 'Existing literature suggests that such oscillatory neuronal activity in these particular brain areas is important for memory and for the encoding of new information and, therefore, provides the brain with optimal conditions for learning,' the authors explain." 
  "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."
  The same article also cites a study which showed that handwriting may facilitate young children's learning to read.
  
  
• Better learning through handwriting (2011)
"When writing by hand, our brain receives feedback from our motor actions, together with the sensation of touching a pencil and paper. These kinds of feedback is significantly different from those we receive when touching and typing on a keyboard."
This article also refers to another language-based study, which had similar outcomes to the one at the start of this post.



• Why You Remember Things Better When You Write Them Down (2020)

"Your memory of handwritten words is tied to the movements required to make each letter. This might be what helps the memory of what we’ve written hang around in our brains a bit longer. Meanwhile, pressing buttons on a keyboard activates fewer areas of the brain, so we forget what we’ve typed faster."
"This makes perfect sense when you think about how humans first evolved the ability to read and write. The process was highly connected to physical touch as, for thousands of years, handwriting involved carving symbols into rock or pressing them into clay. Our minds and bodies are primed for this kind of physical interaction with the world. But typing is a far cry from creating the shape of each individual letter by hand."

There is clearly a lot for language teachers to consider here.  In the primary classroom, writing in books is done by hand with either a pen or pencil (gaining your pen licence in Key Stage 2 is a rite of passage!).  However, as I've mentioned before, there is a lot of writing and preparation for writing that is not done with pencil and paper.  Will these "writing without a pen"activities be less effective because of the way that the writing is done?  Should children be physically writing earlier in the learning process?

Children begin writing by hand in EYFS (Nursery and Reception), by "writing recognisable letters".  They develop their fine motor skills by learning how to hold a pencil correctly.  This work is then continued into Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, where it forms an integral part of the National Curriculum for English.  

By the end of Year 6 (age 11) children should be able to write "legibly, fluently and with increasing speed".  Handwriting is expected to become automatic by the end of Year 6.  Automaticity means that children can produce the letters without having to think about the process; if they can form letters automatically, they will not have to devote cognitive attention to their handwriting, and therefore will be able to focus more on the task that they are completing.

Many of my Year 6 pupils have beautiful handwriting.  They are taught cursive, via one of the popular schemes such as Letterjoin or Berol, which is explicitly practised most days.  They can write any words to practise their handwriting, and so can write keywords from any subject area, including languages.  Others, though, do not, for one reason or another and despite interventions, have the neat and cursive writing that is required, often choosing to print and sometimes not forming certain letters correctly.  It is worth noting that all the work on handwriting is done in Key Stage 2.  Once children get to secondary school, handwriting does not feature as a skill to be explicitly practised as part of the national curriculum, so it is unlikely that these students' writing will improve.

I have heard that some secondary schools are choosing to do all writing using electronic devices, so that students will not be handwriting.  This, according to the article that I first mentioned, is also happening in schools in Norway and Finland.  This is, I think, overlooking the significant benefits that writing by hand can obviously bring, and the many years of handwriting practice and development that has taken place in primary school.