PsyPost reports:

New research published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology suggests that handwriting helps children learn to read more effectively than typing. In an experiment with 5-year-old prereaders, those who practiced writing by hand—either by copying or tracing—outperformed children who typed the same material on a keyboard across a variety of tasks. The findings provide strong support for the idea that the physical act of writing strengthens children’s ability to learn letters and words.

The study was conducted by researchers in Spain who wanted to better understand how different modes of writing—handwriting versus typing—affect early reading development. The recent shift toward digital learning tools has raised concerns that increasing reliance on keyboards may hinder key aspects of early literacy, particularly the learning of alphabetic and orthographic knowledge. Alphabetic knowledge refers to the ability to link letter shapes with their corresponding sounds, while orthographic knowledge involves recognizing familiar patterns and sequences of letters in words.

“As children write less and less by hand, we wanted to explore the impact of this on alphabetic and orthographic skills. In other words, we wanted to see whether the ability to learn letters and to assimilate and remember word structure develops differently through manual training or the use of keyboards,” explained study author Joana Acha, a researcher and lecturer at the University of the Basque Country. [Continue reading…]