TYPING VERSUS HANDWRITING

GLORIA M. MENDOZA

Notebooks punctuate our learning more than we expect. This is where we learn to write our names, first ABCs, assignments and other school work. But with the advent of technology like gadgets with keypads where typing has taken the fore, the art of handwriting or script is fast disappearing.

It’s not a surprise. Homework, readings, news, chitchat, photos, research, music, videos— from the Web unwinds the spool of students’ wired lives. Computers, PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones: the young will sooner be parted from the womb than from the electronic extensions of their identity.

Notebooks, with their leaves of paper, are the spaces where we learn how to write. Recent research has psychiatrists and neuroscientists asserting that writing by hand lets children read more quickly and communicate more exp r essi v el y.

In an article, “What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades,” Maria Konnikova of The New York Times reported that a study of children in grades two through five showed that those who composed text by hand produced more words and ideas than those typing on a keyboard.

In brain imaging, those with better handwriting showed greater activation of neural activity in areas associated with reading, writing and memory.

Other studies showed that, over tracing and printing letters, cursive writing has an edge, such as training self-control.

The scientific link between penmanship and communication is even more significant for public school students. While the situation sorely tests the students’ endurance, not to mention legibility, the exercise with paper and pencil prepares them for a principle proven in laboratories and classrooms: writing by hand helps a person process a lecture and reframe it in his or her words.

According to The New York Times article, perfecting the art of penmanship in childhood benefits the adult’s skills in comprehension, encoding, reflection and memory. The link between handwriting and learning helps a student think better.

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The author is Teacher III at Pampanga High School