A Moment with Dr. Moore

A Way to Wire Brains: Handwriting in Early Learning

Handwriting is becoming a lost art form in an age when screens dominate workplaces and classrooms. Yet there’s growing evidence that handwriting helps young children learn. Research shows that writing by hand leads to better recognition and understanding of letters than typing on a keyboard. It also improves memory and recall of words since writing is closely connected to language networks in the brain. When students see letters that they’ve put down in print, it activates the same part of the brain that functions when they are writing, as decades of studies show.

A 2005 study from Acta Psychologica explored the view that movement plays a crucial role in letter representation and that handwriting contributes to the visual recognition of letters. To test this hypothesis, the researchers trained two groups of children aged three to five years old to copy letters of the alphabet either by hand or by typing them. After three weeks of learning, the researchers ran two recognition tests, a week apart, to compare the letter recognition performances of the two groups. The results showed that in older children, the handwriting training gave rise to better letter recognition than the typing training.

Similarly, two subsequent studies showed that handwriting supports basic skills that lead to academic success. Use of magnetic resonance imaging technology with four- and five-year-old children showed that writing letters by hand activates parts of the brain known as “the reading circuit” more than typing letters did, according to a study that appeared in a 2012 edition of Trends in Neuroscience and Education. The next year, Early Education and Development published a study showing that preschoolers who engaged in writing readiness tasks like imitating strokes, copying letters and drawing simple shapes were better at reading and math by second grade than children who only engaged in tasks like building with blocks, cutting with scissors and lacing beads. Both groups of tasks improved fine motor skills, but the writing readiness tasks did more to build brains.

And more than a decade later, research continues to confirm the value of handwriting for young children. A study that appeared this year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that five-year-old children who practiced writing—either by copying or tracing—performed better on tests of recognition, writing, and pronunciation than children who typed the same material on keyboards. The study provides strong support for the idea that the physical act of writing strengthens children’s ability to learn letters and words, a finding that early educators should keep in mind as they work to advance young children’s skills.

It’s also important for educators to understand that children move through the stages of writing in a methodical way that begins with scribbling, as early childhood experts have long understood. In 1998, the international Literacy Association (ILA) and National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) published a position paper entitled “Learning to Read and Write: Developmentally Appropriate Practices for Children” in which they urged teachers to focus on the message of writing instead of the careful formation of letters. “Classrooms that provide children with regular opportunities to express themselves on paper,” as NAEYC and ILA pointed out, “without feeling too constrained by correct spelling and proper handwriting, also help children understand that writing has real purpose.”

So “the wise teacher is reluctant to provide formal instruction in handwriting to groups of preschool children,” as NAEYC cautioned in a subsequent paper. “Instead, she provides paper and marking tools for children to explore writing. Teachers are concerned—with good reason—that if they regularly provide direct instruction to preschool and kindergarten classes, children’s interest in writing may be undermined.” Before educators can formally teach children to write, they must provide children with formative experiences that help them grasp the final goal of writing: communicating with someone else.

That begins with scribbling that leads to letters and words as children gain fine motor control over their hands. A seemingly small detail—how a child holds their pencil—makes a big difference, according to Ragnar Purje, a neuroscientist and educator at Central Queensland University in Australia. “The tripod grip, where the pencil is held between the thumb and index finger while resting on the middle finger, is the most biomechanically efficient,” he said. “Using the tripod grip sets children up for success since it provides the control, stability and endurance needed for fluent writing. Then once handwriting becomes automatic, a child’s cognitive load decreases, freeing their mind to focus on what they’re writing rather than how they’re writing.”

Once children grasp the mechanics of writing, it helps unleash their imagination. And I saw how quickly children can progress when I served many years ago as a Head Start teacher. One of the things I did while teaching three- and four-year-olds was to have a sign-in sheet for both parents and children. When parents signed in, the children signed in as well, and at the start of the school year, all the children could do was make scribbles that had no relation to their written name. Then, as the year wore on, you could see letters emerge as they made the mental connection between printing their names and signing in.

Having the children draw shapes, as the research has shown, also helped my young students learn to write. And there’s a simple explanation. No matter how you look at a letter, it’s going to be composed of sticks and circles. So, if a child can make a circle or a straight line, whether it’s vertical, horizontal or slanted, they can be proficient in writing. So, in our Head Start writing center, we played a lot of games in which the children formed letters with popsicle sticks and traced circular objects. The children thought these activities were just for fun, but gradually they began to connect them with writing.

There are also several other steps that educators can take to support writing skills, as the Council points out in its textbook for CDA students, Essentials for Working with Young Children. Educators should offer a variety of materials, such as shaving cream, sawdust and hair gel, so children with dexterity challenges can practice tracing letters with their fingers instead of using a writing tool. It also helps to provide letters with texture, like sandpaper or glitter, for children who learn by touch. And educators can place their hands over children’s hands to guide them in writing until they have the strength to hold a pencil or crayon by themselves.

As the children’s writing skills improve, it also helps to inspire them by engaging in fun writing projects, as Essentials goes on to suggest. Educators can encourage children to “sign” their artwork and post it on the wall. They can publish books and stories with children and send thank you notes to visitors—all reasons “to help children understand that there are purposes to writing, one of which is to provide information.”

There are also other strong reasons to teach children to write by hand, despite the increasing turn to keyboards and screens in early childhood classrooms. Granted, children will need to use keyboards for study and work as they grow older, and handwriting is indeed becoming a lost art in the K-12 years. Still, children benefit from mastering handwriting first. When children learn to write by hand, their brains integrate fine motor control, spatial coordination and language in ways that typing on a keyboard can’t do.

We must preserve the lost art of writing by hand in an age where young children spend hours each day swiping, tapping and typing. How children learn to write deeply shapes their mind, as Purje pointed out this year, “Handwriting isn’t just about making neat letters. It’s a brain-building exercise. When children learn to write by hand using the correct technique, they’re wiring their brains for creativity, critical thinking and communication.” So, educators should give young children those formative, fun-filled experiences that will get them ready to write. When children trace circles and build letters with sticks, they’re drafting a blueprint for literacy and learning. When they make scribbles, they’re on the way to writing letters, forming words and picking up skills that will someday spell success.

References

Dinehart LHB and Manfra L (2013). “Association between early fine motor development and later math and reading achievement in early elementary school.” Early Education and Development 24(2): 138–161.

Ibaibarriaga G and Acha J (2025). “The impact of handwriting and typing practice in children’s letter and word learning: Implications for literacy development.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology(May 2025), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096525000013?via%3Dihub.

International Reading Association and National Association for the Education of Young Children (1998). “Learning to read and write: Developmentally appropriate practices for young children.” Young Children 53(4): 3–4.

James KH and Engelhardt L (2012). The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children.” Trends in Neuroscience and Development 1(1), https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4274624/.

Longcamp M, Zerbato-Poudou MT, and Velay JL (2005). “The influence of writing practice on letter recognition in preschool children: A comparison between handwriting and typing.” Acta Psychologica 119(1): 67–79.

Schickedanz JA (1999). “Much More than the ABCs: The early stages of Reading and Writing.” Washington, DC: National Association for the Education of Young Children.