{"id":345443,"date":"2023-01-03T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-03T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/why-is-handwriting-so-important\/"},"modified":"2023-01-03T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T09:00:00","slug":"why-is-handwriting-so-important","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/why-is-handwriting-so-important\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Handwriting So Important?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Typed writing is gradually taking over from handwriting, a phenomenon that is leading to a change in how we use our brain’s abilities<\/strong>. These neurological and motor differences affect learning to read, knowledge acquisition, and language development in children\u2026<\/p>\n

The physical actions of handwriting and typing<\/h2>\n

With typing, both hands are involved, whereas with handwriting, the pen<\/a> is held by only one. “On one hand, you have a process that only engages the dominant hand, usually the right hand, which is controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain<\/strong>, the same one that controls language in most people. On the other hand, typing requires coordination between both hands, and involves sending information to the right hemisphere to drive the left hand. So here, writing is shared between the two hemispheres of the brain<\/strong>,”<\/em> explains Jean-Luc Velay, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at the CNRS[1]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While this difference seems to have little impact on adults, this is not the case for children<\/strong> who are in the middle of learning to write and read\u2026<\/p>\n

Writing to remember better<\/h2>\n

“Children who trace letters and learn to write in cursive remember the shape of letters better<\/strong> and also better understand the left-to-right order of letters, in a reproducible sequence,”<\/em> explains Stanislas Dehaene, holder of the chair in experimental cognitive psychology at the Coll\u00e8ge de France.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Handwritten letters are recognised faster and better than when a key is pressed to form them on screen: here, motor memory supports visual memory<\/strong>. In children with weak visual memory, motor memory plays an even greater role.<\/p>\n

Finally, memorisation is directly linked to the effort put into acquiring information<\/strong>. When the brain has focused a lot of attention on a task, such as writing by hand, it tends to remember it better.<\/p>\n

Writing to read better\u2026<\/h2>\n

“Research has shown that learning to write at the same time as learning to read helps children learn to read faster,”<\/em> notes Stanislas Dehaene2<\/sup>. Handwriting also ensures a better understanding of the word-image<\/strong>, since the word is perceived as a set of connected letters. On screen, words appear with slight spaces between each letter.<\/p>\n

Repeated movement<\/strong> also helps the brain better tell apart “mirror” letters<\/strong>, such as “b” and “d,” or “p” and “q.” This supports decoding and letter recognition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

While introducing a computer at school often supports the efforts of children with DYS during their schooling, it’s important to make sure they keep practising handwriting<\/strong> in a more relaxed setting, in order to preserve its motor and neurological benefits. Don’t hesitate to talk about this with one of our professionals on the Ora-Visio platform<\/a>, who specialise in supporting various learning disorders (dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia\u2026).<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Citation: https:\/\/www.radiofrance.fr\/franceculture\/ecrire-a-la-main-un-geste-du-passe-8602716<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Citation: https:\/\/www.mutuelle403.fr\/ecrire-a-la-main-ou-avec-un-clavier-quelles-consequences-sur-notre-cerveau\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Typed writing is gradually taking over from handwriting, a phenomenon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":345444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[331],"tags":[368],"class_list":["post-345443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-handwriting-therapy","tag-handwriting-therapist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ora-visio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}