August 16, 2021
August 16, 2021
In today’s technology-driven world, many young students may find themselves writing with a pen less and less (if at all). Lessons are mostly delivered via technology, and when you add the COVID-19 pandemic into the mix, online learning has begun to reign supreme. Even children who are just beginning learning in kindergarten classrooms rely heavily on digital devices and tools for the bulk of their learning. It would appear as if the old-school action of putting pen to paper is on its way out of the classroom.
Although digital devices and tools are great in advancing how students learn, there is an issue that students may face by leaving traditional handwriting out of the equation. Research has found that many educational systems, such as those in Norway and Finland, have completely abandoned handwriting in the classroom, replacing it with entirely digitized forms of teaching, learning, and education. With this widespread phase-out of handwriting, many students may not really know how to write by hand at all. This could lead to an entire generation of young learners losing the ability to do so. For many, that notion doesn’t seem too dire – however, there are some serious drawbacks to forgetting cursive altogether.
Since the benefits of handwriting aren’t well known, especially when it comes to brain development in school-aged children, many people may be wondering: why is learning handwriting important? And what is the connection between handwriting and brain development? Let’s investigate.
Does handwriting help brain development?
In short, the answer to this question is yes. Handwriting, or learning to write in cursive, is significant when it comes to cognitive development. Nowadays, learning to type is important for knowing how to complete tasks through online learning or other forms of digital teaching; however, mounting evidence is showing that children who do not learn cursive handwriting at all could end up compromising their brain’s full potential in the process.
One study performed by the scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology found that it wasn’t just writing with a pen and paper that helps cognitive development. Subjects were hooked up to EEGs and asked to participate in tasks on an interactive computer screen using a digital pen. The EEGs monitored electrical activity in the brains of participants while students were handwriting, typing on a keyboard, drawing words using a digital pen on a tablet or touchscreen device, and writing with pencil and paper.
Researchers learned that cursive writing had a significant effect on the brain, essentially readying it for learning by stimulating the brain in a much more effective way. One particular part of the brain, the parietal lobe, which has a role in memory and new information retention, was far more stimulated during the cursive writing activity.
Those who used cursive handwriting during their activities were found to learn better and remember the information learned more accurately, because the act of writing by hand essentially provided the brain with the proper conditions it needs to learn at its best. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, back up claims that cursive writing, although scarce, should be implemented in schools for as long as possible.
How does writing by hand stimulate brain development?
There is much more research to show exactly how cursive writing stimulates brain activity, some of which is not new. Roughly a decade ago, some researchers dove into the effects of handwriting on brain stimulation and development by using MRI neuroimaging. They sought to investigate the specific effects that writing by hand had on functional brain development in young school-aged children.
The results were judged against typing and tracing letter shapes, and the researchers found that while children used cursive, a region in the brain known as the reading circuit was activated. The reading circuit is a part of the temporal lobe and is responsible for processing letters, phonological awareness, and decoding sounds. Although the study found that it helped with reading, activating that area of the brain could also be helpful in speech production, grammatical use, and comprehension.
What does handwriting have to do with brain structure?
Research surrounding handwriting and brain structure has also been explored. One recent study using an fMRI looked at reading and writing skills in both children and adults and the effects that handwriting had on certain structures in the brain. This study showed that there is a link between children and adults who learned cursive throughout their formative years because of the effects that mastering handwriting has on the interconnectivity of neuronal oscillation patterns. Neural oscillations are also referred to as brainwaves, and are essentially the rhythm of neural activity that goes on in the central nervous system. The oscillatory activity between neurons in the brain stems from certain connections being made.
The results of the study found that not only did young children benefit at the time from better brain development due to better oscillatory patterns, but adults who learned and mastered writing as children were also found to have continued benefit in their brains as they aged. The benefit provided by the integration of sensory and motor skills while writing stems largely from the parts of the brain that are activated during cursive writing, as well as the involvement of the senses that are used when a child has to practice precise hand movements.
The combination of the results of a plethora of studies found that cursive writing is not only important – it can be of huge benefit for brain development and the levels of intelligence a child grows up to have. Handwriting optimizes learning in a way that digital learning can’t. It’s the same reason why people who write out lecture notes or their to-do or grocery lists remember more of what was written down. Writing by hand is good for the brain during development, and well into adulthood. So be sure to encourage your kids or students to pick up that pen!
Image by Eleni Koureas on Unsplash