Do we still need to teach handwriting? | Integrated Learning Therapy

Even though adults seldom communicate by means of pens these days, it seems that there is good reason to continue teaching children how to write legibly.

Lucinda McKnight an Maria Nicholas discuss this in The Conversation. They remind us of how the world of writing is changing very quickly. From graduating from pen-and-paper to keyboards, we have speech-to-text software and future developments might see decoders that read brain activity so we don’t even have to use our hands to write at all. ‘Writing’ may be completely changed.

McKnight and Nicholas believe that there are still reasons why teaching cursive handwriting is necessary.

Fine motor skills

Handwriting develops critical fine motor skills and the coordination needed to control precise movements. These movements are required to conduct everyday home and work-related activities. It is also these motor skills that allow handwriting to become legible and fluent as we develop and (interesting thought) who knows that technology might change course and we are taken back to the past. There is a caution that using technology and AI might allow learners to cheat on tests so handwritten answers may be required.

It helps you remember

Handwriting has important cognitive benefits, including memory. Research suggests traditional pen-and-paper notes aid memory, due to the greater complexity of the handwriting process. In addition, reading and handwriting are closely linked. Learners become better readers through practicing writing.

It’s good for well-being

Handwriting, and related activities such as drawing, are tactile, creative and reflective sources of pleasure and wellness for writers of all ages. Many people enjoy calligraphy and handwriting journals.

It’s very accessible

Handwriting does not need electricity, devices, batteries, software, subscriptions, a fast internet connection, a keyboard, charging time or the many other things on which digital writing depends. It only needs pen and paper. It can be done anywhere and is particularly useful when it comes to writing a birthday card, filling in printed forms and so on.

It’s about thinking

Most importantly, learning to write and learning to think are intimately connected. As we write, we form, develop and organise ideas. Thinking can’t be outsourced to technology.

In summary, while writing perfect cursive may become less important in the future, people of all ages will still need to be able to write legibly and fluently in their education and in their broader lives.

Image above supplied by Freepik.

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.