Laptops Lead to Higher Writing Test Scores

From the Boston Globe:

"Maine's program to give every middle school student a laptop computer is leading to better writing. 4real!

Despite creating a language all their own using e-mail and text messages, students are still learning standard English and their writing scores have improved on a standardized test since laptop computers were distributed, according to a new study.

And the students' writing skills improved even when they were using pen and paper, not just a computer keyboard, the study says." ...

You can read the entire article by clicking on the link above or see the raw data and study report from the University of Southern Maine by clicking here.

Perhaps handwriting really does get in the way of developing higher level writing skills.

Paperless Classroom in Miami

Another blow for the "handwriting is important" crowd: Check out this Miami Herald article about a paperless 5th grade classroom, where each child has a computer screen built into his or her desk.

..."When [the teacher] assigns students a report on Civil War heroes, the students take off on their own using websites like Google and Dogpile to do research, cutting and pasting photographs into documents and saving their work on disks.

''Instead of writing with a paper and pencil and your hand getting tired, we can do it on a computer,'' said Robert Toledo, 10, as he read a site about Abraham Lincoln. ``It's faster and better.''

Here in Miami-Dade's only paperless classroom, websites are used in lieu of textbooks, PowerPoint presentations substitute for written essays and students get homework help from their teacher by e-mail.

''I can use the skills I learn here in sixth grade and in college,'' said Marissa Seijo, 10."...

Pretty cool, huh? I think written (as in word-processed) essays should supplement PowerPoint presentations to encourage actual development of ideas. In my experience, PowerPoints tend to favor regurgitation of images and sounds pulled off the internet, rather than promoting critical thought and development of ideas. Then again, we are talking about fifth grade. ;-)

Handwriting on the Wall? Doubt it.

According to an article in today's Washington Post, teachers can no longer find enough time to teach proper handwriting. And they don't care.

"Many educators shrug. Stacked up against teaching technology, foreign languages and the material on standardized tests, penmanship instruction seems a relic, teachers across the region say. But academics who specialize in writing acquisition argue that it's important cognitively, pointing to research that shows children without proficient handwriting skills produce simpler, shorter compositions, from the earliest grades."

I've mentioned before that I feel that "lovely handwriting" should be considered an artistic technique, not a writing skill. The Post's article would have us believe that without cursive writing, there would be no critical thought:

"The loss of handwriting also may be a cognitive opportunity missed. The neurological process that directs thought, through fingers, into written symbols is a highly sophisticated one. Several academic studies have found that good handwriting skills at a young age can help children express their thoughts better -- a lifelong benefit. Children who don't learn correct technique find it harder to write by hand, so they avoid it."

"In one of the studies, Vanderbilt University professor Steve Graham, who studies the acquisition of writing, experimented with a group of first-graders in Prince George's County who could write only 10 to 12 letters per minute. The kids were given 15 minutes of handwriting instruction three times a week. After nine weeks, they had doubled their writing speed and their expressed thoughts were more complex. He also found corresponding increases in their sentence construction skills."

Let's think about this. Being able to write easily from a young age makes children more likely to write well. Children who struggle with writing don't like to write. Earthshattering news? Hardly. And I would argue this means keyboarding is even more important than 15 minutes a day of handwriting practice.

A child who is not worrying about letter-formation will be able to add that much more attention to the ideas he or she is writing. More practice at letter-formation needed? No, how about removing letter-formation from the equation altogether? People who type don't worry about letter-formation, or spelling, or grammar when they are first getting their ideas down. All that technical stuff can be fixed later; it's the ideas that are important. Revising is easy in a wordprocessing program.

People (children) who are forced to laboriously hand-write an essay concentrate on all these mechanics to the detriment of ideas so they won't have to rewrite later. And that fear of having to rewrite is what makes the essays superficial. A child who is more worried about spelling than communicating ideas will write "Dad's mom" instead of "Grandmother." (Klaus, age 5, after three months in kindergarten). A child who is dictating a story will go on for pages with dialogue and extensive descriptions, will type a five page essay, but when hand-writing will struggle to finish half a page. (Xavier, the one with the perfect penmanship, grade 3) I suppose Professor Graham would be puzzled that my boy with the best handwriting is also the one who refuses to write.

We are in a transition period from the paper to the paperless society. (Offices have been trying to achieve this for years, right?) The paperless society is also a pen-less one. No paper, no need for pens. No pens, no need for penmanship. Yes, lovely cursive writing may survive as a hobby or an art form, like calligraphy (which used to be a necessary skill--for medieval monks--until the technology changed, i.e. invention of the printing press).

I would argue that technology is about to supercede the need for any handwriting. Think security, a signature can be forged more easily than a thumbprint. Electronic security codes and layered encryption seal legal and economic transactions. Credit card receipts and grocery lists are the only things I handwrite now. FastPass technology is doing away with signed credit slips and if I could order my groceries online, I absolutely would. Then what would I need pens for? Probably only to write myself sticky notes and I don't need good handwriting for that.

Writing and Handwriting Are Not the Same Skill

Picture a 9-year-old boy--he loves books, but hates writing. Picture him at the kitchen table with his head nearly resting on a piece of lined paper. Under his curled arm, he has written a single sentence, and now he can't think of anything else to say. Anything other than, "I hate writing. Why do we have to do this?", that is.

Now picture him at my kitchen table, because I'm talking about Xavier.

Xavier is stuck on sentence two, not because he has nothing else to say, not because he doesn't really understand the assignment but because he lost his train of thought when he shifted from the creative process of working with ideas to the physical process of working with a pencil. We call them both "writing" but they're completely different skills.

Handwriting requires hand-eye coordination and fine motor prowess, like catching a tennis ball. Reading and true writing requires you to understand language, draw inferences and follow a story or an argument to its logical conclusion--brain work. Try reading a complex story or persuasive essay while bouncing a tennis ball. Could you do it? Were you truly doing both at the same time or just switching quickly from intellectual mode to physical and back? Do you remember what you read? I know I couldn't.

Enter Neo, a small, portable, inexpensive mini-word processor that many school districts are now supplying to their elementary students for note-taking and essay writing. Neo can even administer and grade teacher-downloaded tests.

The Neo is produced by AlphaSmart, which began producing portable keyboards in schools for dysgraphic and other special ed kids. But why not every child? They're learning keyboarding at school, most type faster than they write. A product such as the Neo ensures that their ideas come across legibly and spelled correctly, so the kids can concentrate on those higher-level thinking skills we're supposed to be teaching. At least typing gives you a fighting chance to keep up with a brain that's moving faster than your pencil can go.

"But they'll never learn to spell if they use spell-check!" "They'll never learn to write properly if all they do is type!" Not so. Even the best spell-checker will substitute "hear" for "here". (I had one that kept wanting to substitute "drachma" for drama.) So knowing your homonyms and homophones will still be an essential skill. And spell-check is no help at all for replacing missing words.

As for learning proper handwriting, it is true handwriting improves with practice, up to a point. DH used to have perfect handwriting, until he started writing out prescriptions and signing his name hundreds of times a day. Now his seventeen-letter name is down to seven and even my scribbled signature is more legible than his.

So when you're confronted with a kid who "hates writing," probe a little more. Do they easily dictate more complex ideas than you ever see on the page? Is his (it's nearly always a boy who says this) primary complaint that it "takes to long"? Does he have any keyboarding skills? (Stopping to hunt and peck is just as disruptive as stopping to draw the letters.) If the answer to these questions is no, some more teaching about story structure or developing an argument may be in order. But if the answer is yes, for goodness sake, give the kid a keyboard and leave the fine motor work for gym class.

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