Writing by hand boosts reading skills in young children, study finds

Digital tools are becoming a standard in early childhood classrooms. Many schools now rely on tablets, laptops, and typing programs to teach reading and writing. While this shift may seem modern and efficient, new research from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) reveals that replacing handwriting with keyboard use may come with hidden costs.

At age five or six, children are at a key moment in their development. This is when they start learning how letters look, sound, and form words. The UPV/EHU study explored whether it’s better to teach kids new letters and words by having them write by hand or type on a keyboard.

To find out, researchers taught 50 children completely unfamiliar letters from the Armenian and Georgian alphabets. The letters were paired with simple sounds in Spanish. Then, they taught the children made-up two-syllable words built from those letters, like “tofe” and “nape.”

Why use unfamiliar letters? “We wanted to make sure the children were learning from scratch,” explained lead researcher Joana Acha. Using letters from their native language would make it unclear if the kids already knew them. This approach let researchers better measure how each learning method affected progress.

The children were split into four groups. Two groups wrote the letters and words by hand—one traced them using dotted guides, and the other copied them freely. The other two typed them on a keyboard—either using a single font or several different ones. The researchers were testing not just the effect of hand movement, called graphomotor activity, but also how variety in letter shapes might affect learning.

After the lessons, each child was tested on their ability to identify, pronounce, and write the new letters and words. The results were striking. Kids who used pencil and paper—especially those who copied freely—performed better across all tasks. They remembered the shapes and sounds of letters more clearly and could write the made-up words more accurately.

This was especially true when it came to remembering word structure. Children who had learned by typing often confused the order of letters or couldn’t complete the words correctly.

“Almost everyone who learned on a keyboard struggled with the letter sequences,” Acha said. “The graphomotor function—how the hand moves to form letters—is essential for memorizing both letters and word structure.”

When you write by hand, your brain connects the shape of each letter with the movement required to create it. This builds stronger memory connections than simply pressing a key.

But the study didn’t stop there. It also looked at how variety in visual presentation affects learning. Some kids always saw the same font during training. Others saw different fonts, or if writing by hand, had to create the letters themselves without a guide.

Those who experienced more variety—especially the ones who copied by hand without a model—learned the best. Their brains were more flexible in recognizing letters in different formats and spotting words with similar letter patterns.

This supports what scientists call the “variability hypothesis.” When kids see or create letters in different ways, their brains get better at identifying the core features that define a letter, no matter how it looks.

In an earlier study, researchers using brain imaging found that writing letters by hand activated areas of the brain involved in letter recognition more than tracing or typing. Writing creates slightly different versions each time, which helps the brain figure out what makes a letter unique.

“Once children can make small, precise movements, they benefit more from copying freely than from tracing,” Acha said. “What’s most important is giving them real experiences with writing by hand.”

Reading well depends on two things: recognizing letters and understanding how they combine to form words. These are known as alphabetic and orthographic knowledge.

Alphabetic knowledge helps kids link each letter’s shape with its sound. For example, the letter “f” makes the /f/ sound. Orthographic knowledge, on the other hand, lets them remember how letters come together to form real words—like knowing that “ph” can make the /f/ sound in “phone.”

Research shows both of these skills are improved by writing. When you form a letter with your hand, your brain locks in both the shape and the sound. Over time, this helps with spelling, reading fluency, and even vocabulary growth.

Kids who write more by hand become better at noticing patterns, such as which letters go together often and how they usually appear in certain positions in a word. For example, “th” is common at the start of English words, while “ing” often ends them.

This doesn’t mean digital tools have no place in the classroom. Computers and tablets can help children access information, practice skills, or explore creative writing. However, for learning the basics of reading and spelling, handwriting appears to be essential.

Researchers caution against using keyboards too early or too often. If children skip the step of physically forming letters, they may lose out on brain development that supports reading later on.

Typing doesn’t involve the same level of movement or variability. Pressing the same key always produces the same perfect-looking letter, no matter how the child touches it. That uniformity may seem helpful, but it doesn’t help the brain build strong, lasting memories of letters or their sounds.

In one part of the study, kids who typed using different fonts did slightly better than those who always used the same font—but still not as well as those who wrote by hand. The benefits of variety didn’t outweigh the loss of graphomotor activity.

Acha summed it up clearly: “Technological devices should only be used in a complementary way. Manual writing should be prioritized in early learning.”

The study's findings, published in the journal, Journal of Experimental Child Psychologym, align with earlier research from across the world. Whether children are learning the Roman alphabet, Arabic, or even Chinese, handwriting leads to better letter recognition and reading skills. Functional MRI studies have shown that writing activates the same brain areas used during reading, reinforcing those early connections.

In this study, conducted under ethical guidelines and with careful controls, the evidence is stronger than ever. Fifty children, all in the last year of kindergarten and without any known developmental issues, were randomly divided into equal groups. They had similar reading levels and motor skills. The only difference was how they practiced the new letters and words.

All materials and results were made publicly available to support transparency. The study met high standards for scientific accuracy and education research.

The takeaway is clear: Writing by hand is not just a tradition—it’s a proven tool for building reading skills. Letting kids draw letters with their fingers helps their brains remember them better. And when they do this freely, without rigid models or fonts, they learn even faster.

Schools, parents, and teachers should think twice before replacing pencils with keyboards. Learning to read starts in the fingers—and what the fingers do, the brain remembers.

Note: The article above provided above by The Brighter Side of News.

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