Writing by hand is better for learning, memory Premium

Discover the cognitive benefits of handwriting over typing, especially for students in languages with unique alphabets.

Time was when we elders wrote our letters and other correspondence using pen and paper and sent them across through the post office. Today, other than sending greeting cards by post, we have even started using digital devices such as smartphones and digital computers, typing out the alphabet and numbers for sending applications, messages, and responses. Even today, when we are in the e-age, primary and secondary school children while learning to write lessons, do homework, answer tests, and write essays by hand, and once done, use their smartphones to talk to friends and use WhatsApp.

An article by Charlotte Hu, in the Scientific American citing some research publications says that writing by hand activates a wide range of interconnected brain regions responsible for learning and memory. Let me cite the findings of some of these publications. Studies in education research by a group of technologists from Trondheim, Norway, in the journal Frontiers in Psychology point out that handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity. In other words, handwriting affects the brain in more positive ways than typing the same material on a keyboard. First, handwriting training not only improves spelling accuracy but also facilitates better memory and recall.

They studied a group of schoolchildren, attached electronic sensors to their heads, and monitored the brain activity while the students were writing by hand, and when they were using a computer. Such an electroencephalographic study revealed that writing or drawing by hand causes more activity and involves larger areas of the brain, as opposed to typing on a keyboard. Writing was thus seen to ‘light up’ more brain regions than typing. When the students were also given a challenging word game (e.g., ‘scrabble’, ‘wordle’), their memory levels were found to be higher.

Handwriting also helps in recognising and understanding the shapes and sizes of letters of the alphabet. In a study involving about 30 students, they asked the participants to use a digital pen to write in cursive by hand directly on the touchscreen and a keyboard to typewrite the presented words. Here too, the shape and size of the letters written by hand were better than typing.

Languages where the alphabets differ from those in English (for example those in the Middle East, Far East, and some Indian languages as well) are easier written by hand and are not easily available on most commercially available computers.

In most schools across India, the medium of instruction in most schools is the local language for students from primary all the way up to the tenth class, and English is taught as an additional language from the secondary school level. However, the children already use mobile phones which have English alphabets in them. Some Indian languages have unique letters and alphabets that the English alphabets do not — e.g., ழ and ഴ in Tamil and Malayalam, which are spelt approximately as ‘zha’ in English.

Likewise, some Urdu/Arabic words used in Hindi and Punjabi are not typable on a keyboard. And when we in India use mobile phones or computers to write something, we find it hard since these devices have only English alphabets.