In a world of laptops, tablets and keyboards, could something as simple as a pencil help your child learn and remember?
Children today are growing up in a very different learning environment from the one many parents experienced.
Screens, laptops and tablets have become a normal part of school and home learning. They are incredibly useful tools — and technology certainly has an important place in education.
But interestingly, researchers have been looking more closely at something much simpler:
What happens in the brain when we actually write something down by hand?
And the findings give parents and educators something worth thinking about.
Writing Is More Than Putting Words on a Page
When your child writes a word by hand, their brain isn't simply recording the word.
Their eyes see it.
Their hand physically forms it.
Their fingers feel the movement.
Their brain has to coordinate the shape, position and movement required to create each individual letter.
In other words, several processes are happening together.
Research comparing handwriting with typing has found much more elaborate patterns of brain connectivity when people form words by hand. These patterns involve areas and frequencies associated with attention, processing information and memory formation. (Frontiers)
That doesn't mean typing is bad for the brain.
It means that writing and typing are different learning experiences.
And sometimes that difference matters.
ELEPHANT
Their fingers press eight keys.
Each key requires essentially the same action: find it and press it.
Now imagine writing ELEPHANT.
The hand has to create an E, change direction and create an L, form a curved E again, then create a completely different movement for P — and so on.
The brain is coordinating vision, movement and sensation while paying attention to the sequence of letters.
Researchers believe this rich combination of visual and movement information may help create conditions that support encoding — the process of getting new information into memory. (PubMed Central (PMC))
For children who are still developing reading and writing skills, this may be especially important.
A recent study involving young learners found that children who learned unfamiliar letters and words through handwriting activities performed better across several later tests than children who learned them by typing. (PubMed)
Sometimes Slower Can Actually Be Better
We often assume that faster means more efficient.
But learning isn't simply about how quickly information can be recorded.
The important question is: did the brain actually process it?
When students type notes, they can often record much more information.
When they write notes by hand, however, they can't usually keep up word-for-word. They have to listen, identify what's important, shorten it and put it into a form they can write down.
That extra thinking may be valuable.
A large analysis of 24 studies involving college students found that typing resulted in students recording considerably more notes, but taking and reviewing handwritten notes was associated with better academic achievement overall. (DOI)
So perhaps the goal shouldn't always be:
"How much did my child write down?"
A better question may be:
"How much did my child actually process and remember?"
This Fits With Something I Have Taught for Many Years...
One of the central ideas behind my 5 Step Easy Learning System is that children need to learn HOW to learn.
Simply presenting information isn't enough.
For information to become useful, a child needs to pay attention to it, process it, store it and then be able to find it again when they need it.
That's why I encourage children to become active participants in their learning by;
- Write it.
- Picture it.
- Say it.
- Connect it.
- Use it.
- Recall it.
The more meaningful ways a child interacts with information, the more opportunities they have to build useful connections around what they're learning.
Try This Simple Experiment With Your Child
The next time your child needs to remember something for school, don't simply have them read it several times.
Give them a piece of paper.
Ask them to write down the important information in their own words.
Then encourage them to add something visual — perhaps a little picture, symbol, diagram, colour, mind map or funny image that represents the information.
Then turn the paper over.
Ask:
"What can you remember?"
Don't worry about getting everything right immediately.
The important part is encouraging their brain to retrieve the information, rather than simply looking at it again.
Writing + visualising + recalling turns a passive activity into an active learning experience.
Should We Get Rid of Computers and Tablets?
Absolutely not.
Technology gives children enormous opportunities and is now an essential part of education and life.
Research in this area isn't completely one-sided either. Some studies have found little difference in later recall between handwritten and digital note-taking, and individual children may benefit from different approaches. (PubMed)
The message isn't:
Pens good. Computers bad.
It's much more useful than that.
We need to ask:
Which tool is best for what my child is trying to do?
Typing may be ideal for writing a long assignment, editing work, researching or communicating.
But when a child is trying to learn a new spelling word, understand a new concept, take meaningful notes or remember important information, picking up a pencil may be surprisingly powerful.
Don't Just Teach It — Help Them Store It
One of the biggest frustrations I hear from parents is:
"They knew it yesterday, but today they've forgotten it."
That doesn't necessarily mean your child wasn't listening.
It doesn't necessarily mean they weren't trying.
Sometimes the missing piece is simply how the information was processed and stored in the first place.
That's why teaching children effective learning strategies is so important.
The goal isn't simply to get through tonight's homework.
It's to help children discover how their brain learns, stores and retrieves information so that eventually they can say:
"I know what to do when I need to learn something."
And sometimes, one of the simplest places to start is also one of the oldest:
Pick up a pencil and write it down.
DISCOVER WHAT MAY BE MISSING!
Why Your Child Isn’t Retaining What They Learn at School — And How the Right Learning Skills Can Make a Difference in 30 Days or Less
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