My godchild Morgan is taking a study skills course thissummer and was surprised that the teacher thought it was good study techniquefor them to hand write out an outline of the chapters in their textbooks toprepare for tests. She is a smart kid and she felt writing by hand was a wasteof time when she could simply type her notes and outlines on the computer. Hermom and I shared with her how that when we were in school we wrote hand writtenoutlines to prepare for our tests and that it helped.
Her mom and I both being “teachers” also told her that writingby hand helps the brain process information differently and aids memory. Beingthe research junkie that I am I of course had to look up the research. I foundit The Wall Street journal and a bit more on that piece my favorite magazineThe Week it is fascinating. Take out a pen now and write a reminder toread this article to your children.
FYI, I of course being a true nerdette in school outlinesthe book chapters before classes on the content in one notebook then took notesin class in a second notebook and then the week before the test I used a thirdnotebook the week before the exam to rewrite all the book notes integrating in theclass notes and color coded them. )
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704631504575531932754922518.html Wall Street journal
Recent researchillustrates how writing by hand engages the brain in learning. During one studyat Indiana University published this year, researchers invited children to mana "spaceship," actually an MRI machine using a specialized scancalled "functional" MRI that spots neural activity in the brain. Thekids were shown letters before and after receiving different letter-learninginstruction. In children who had practiced printing by hand, the neuralactivity was far more enhanced and "adult-like" than in those who hadsimply looked at letters.
"It seemsthere is something really important about manually manipulating and drawing outtwo-dimensional things we see all the time," says Karin Harman James,assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Indiana University wholed the study.
More
· The Juggle: InDigital Age, Does Handwriting Still Matter?
Adults may benefitsimilarly when learning a new graphically different language, such as Mandarin,or symbol systems for mathematics, music and chemistry, Dr. James says. Forinstance, in a 2008 study in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, adults wereasked to distinguish between new characters and a mirror image of them afterproducing the characters using pen-and-paper writing and a computer keyboard.The result: For those writing by hand, there was stronger and longer-lastingrecognition of the characters' proper orientation, suggesting that the specificmovements memorized when learning how to write aided the visual identificationof graphic shapes.
Other researchhighlights the hand's unique relationship with the brain when it comes tocomposing thoughts and ideas. Virginia Berninger, a professor of educationalpsychology at the University of Washington, says handwriting differs fromtyping because it requires executing sequential strokes to form a letter,whereas keyboarding involves selecting a whole letter by touching a key.
She says picturesof the brain have illustrated that sequential finger movements activatedmassive regions involved in thinking, language and working memory—the systemfor temporarily storing and managing information.
And one recentstudy of hers demonstrated that in grades two, four and six, children wrotemore words, faster, and expressed more ideas when writing essays by hand versuswith a keyboard.
AJ Mast for the Wall Street Journal
For research atIndiana University, children undergo specialized MRI brain scans that spotneurological activity.
The Week.
How writing by hand makes kids smarter
Younger Americans are typing or texting more and writingless, even in school — and that's a problem when it comes to brain development
posted on October 6, 2010, at 12:59 PM
Most grade-school children are spendingonly one hour a week on penmanship. Photo: CorbisSEE ALL 203 PHOTOS
With the ubiquity of keyboards large and small, neitherchildren nor adults need to write much of anything by hand. That's a bigproblem, says GwendolynBounds in The Wall StreetJournal. Study after study suggests that handwriting isimportant for brain development and cognition — helping kids hone fine motorskills and learn to express and generate ideas. Yet the time devoted toteaching penmanship in most grade schools has shrunk to just one hour a week.Is it time to break out the legal pad? Here's a look at how the brain andpenmanship interact:
Writing by hand can get ideas out faster
University of Wisconsin psychologist VirginiaBerninger tested students in grades 2, 4, and 6, and found that they not onlywrote faster by hand than by keyboard — but also generated more ideas whencomposing essays in longhand. In other research, Berninger shows that thesequential finger movements required to write by hand activate brain regionsinvolved with thought, language, and short-term memory.
Writing increases neural activity
A recent Indiana University study had one group ofchildren practice printing letters by hand while a second group just looked atexamples of A's, B's, and C's. Then, both groups of kids entered a functionalMRI (disguised as a "spaceship") that scanned their brains as theresearchers showed them letters. The neural activity in the first group was farmore advanced and "adult-like," researchers found.
Good handwriting makes you seem smarter
Handwriting also affects other people's perceptionsof adults and children. Several studies have shown that the same mediocre essaywill score much higher if written with good penmanship and much lower ifwritten out in poor handwriting, says Vanderbilt University education professorSteve Graham. "There is a reader effect that is insidious," he says."People judge the quality of your ideas based on your handwriting."And the consequences are real: On standardized tests with handwritten sections,like the SAT, an essay deemed illegible gets a big zero.
This isn't only an English-language phenomenon
Chinese and Japanese youths are suffering from"character amnesia," says AFP's Judith Evans.They can't remember how to create letters, thanks to computers and textmessaging. In China, the problem is so prevalent, there's a word for it:"Tibiwangzi", or "take pen, forget character." "It'slike you're forgetting your culture," says Zeng Ming, 22. So closely areChinese writing and reading linked in the brain, says Hong Kong Universitylinguist Siok Wai Ting, that China's reading ability as a nation could suffer.
New technology is part of the solution
New touch-screen phones and tablets, like theiPhone and iPad, are providing a countervailing force, translating handwritinginto digital letter forms or making writing practice fun (a $1.99 iPhone appcalled "abc PocketPhonics" rewards kids with "cheeringpencils"). In Japan, an iPhone game called kanji kentei — acharacter quiz with 12 levels — has become a hitwith all age groups.
Science may just be catching up with common sense
Heather Horn in The Atlantic Wire saysthat while all this research is fascinating, it mostly shows that"scientists are finally beginning to explore what writers have longsuspected." She notes a 1985 article inthe Paris Reviewin which the interviewer asks novelist Robert Stone if he mostly types hismanuscripts. His reply: "Yes, until something becomes elusive. Then Iwrite in longhand in order to be precise. On a typewriter or word processor youcan rush something that shouldn't be rushed — you can lose nuance, richness,lucidity. The pen compels lucidity."
Sources: Wall StreetJournal, The Atlantic Wire,AFP/Reuters
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://PattiWood.net. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.
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