The importance of handwriting is becoming better un... https://www.economist.com/culture/2023/09/14/the-im...

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Culture | Johnson

The importance of handwriting is

becoming better understood
Research on pens and paper highlights their benefits

IMAGE: NICK LOWNDES

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millennia ago, Socrates complained that writing would

T WO AND A HALF
harm students. With a way to store ideas permanently and externally, they
would no longer need to memorise. It is tempting to dismiss him as an old man
complaining about change. Socrates did not have a stack of peer-reviewed
science to make his case about the usefulness of learning concepts by heart.

Today a different debate is raging about the dangers of another technology

—computers—and the typing people do on them. As primary-school pupils and
PhD hopefuls return for a new school year in the northern hemisphere, many will
do so with a greater-than-ever reliance on computers to take notes and write
papers. Some parents of younger students are dismayed that their children are
not just encouraged but required to tote laptops to class. University professors
complain of rampant distraction in classrooms, with students reading and
messaging instead of listening to lectures.

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A line of research shows the benefits of an “innovation” that predates computers:

handwriting. Studies have found that writing on paper can improve everything
from recalling a random series of words to imparting a better conceptual grasp of
complicated ideas.

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For learning material by rote, from the shapes of letters to the quirks of English
spelling, the benefits of using a pen or pencil lie in how the motor and sensory
memory of putting words on paper reinforces that material. The arrangement of
squiggles on a page feeds into visual memory: people might remember a word
they wrote down in French class as being at the bottom-left on a page, par
exemple.

One of the best-demonstrated advantages of writing by hand seems to be in

superior note-taking. In a study from 2014 by Pam Mueller and Danny
Oppenheimer, students typing wrote down almost twice as many words and
more passages verbatim from lectures, suggesting they were not understanding
so much as rapidly copying the material.

Handwriting—which takes longer for nearly all university-level students—forces

note-takers to synthesise ideas into their own words. This aids conceptual
understanding at the moment of writing. But those taking notes by hand also
perform better on tests when students are later able to study from their notes. The
effect even persisted when the students who typed were explicitly instructed to
rephrase the material in their own words. The instruction was “completely
ineffective” at reducing verbatim note-taking, the researchers note: they did not
understand the material so much as parrot it.

Many studies have confirmed handwriting’s benefits, and policymakers have

taken note. Though America’s “Common Core” curriculum from 2010 does not
require handwriting instruction past first grade (roughly age six), about half the
states since then have mandated more teaching of it, thanks to campaigning by
researchers and handwriting supporters. In Sweden there is a push for more
handwriting and printed books and fewer devices. England’s national curriculum
already prescribes teaching the rudiments of cursive by age seven.

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However, several school systems in America have gone so far as to ban most

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However, several school systems in America have gone so far as to ban most
laptops. This is too extreme. Some students have disabilities that make
handwriting especially hard. Nearly all will eventually need typing skills. And
typing can improve the quality of writing: being able to get ideas down quickly,
before they are forgotten, can obviously be beneficial. So can slowing down the
speed of typing, says Dr Oppenheimer.

Virginia Berninger, emeritus professor of psychology at the University of

Washington, is a longtime advocate of handwriting. But she is not a purist; she
says there are research-tested benefits for “manuscript” print-style writing, for
cursive (which allows greater speed) but also for typing (which is good practice
for composing passages). Since students spend more time on devices as they age,
she argues for occasional “tuning up” of handwriting in later school years.

And perhaps even into adulthood. Johnson had not handwritten anything longer
than a letter in decades before putting actual pen to paper to write this column’s
first draft. Whether it made any difference to the outcome is a question that
readers must decide.

Socrates may or may not have had a point about the downsides of writing. But
no one would remember, much less care, if his student Plato had not noted it
down for the benefit of posterity. ■

Read more from Johnson, our columnist on language:

AI could make it less necessary to learn foreign languages (Aug 17th)

In northern Europe, a backlash against English is under way (Aug 4th)

AI is making it possible to clone voices (Jul 20th)

For more on the latest books, films, TV shows, albums and controversies, sign up
to Plot Twist, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "Hand-wringing
over handwriting"

Culture
September 16th 2023

→ The importance of handwriting is becoming better

understood

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→ A history of solitary sailing asks why people seek out its

danger

→ “North Woods”, a new novel, explores the limits of memory

→ Impulsive and self-destructive: Elon Musk as depicted in a new

book

How AI can revolutionise

science From the September 16th
2023 edition
Discover stories from this section
and more in the list of contents

⇒ Explore the edition

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