How Handwriting Trains the Brain ing by hand engages the brain in learn- hand versus with a keyboard. Forming ing. During one study at Indiana Univer- Even in the digital age, people remain sity published this year, researchers invited enthralled by handwriting for myriad rea- children to man a “spaceship,” actually sons—the intimacy implied by a loved Letters Is Key an MRI machine using a specialized scan one’s script, or what the slant and shape called “functional” MRI that spots neural of letters might reveal about personality. to Learning, activity in the brain. The kids were shown During actress Lindsay Lohan’s proba- letters before and after receiving different tion violation court appearance this sum- Memory, Ideas letter-learning instruction. In children who mer, a swarm of handwriting experts prof- had practiced printing by hand, the neural fered analysis of her blocky courtroom By Gwendoyn Bounds activity was far more enhanced and ”adult- scribbling. “Projecting a false image” and The Wall Street Journal like” than in those who had simply looked “crossing boundaries,” concluded two on Ask preschooler Zane Pike to write at letters. celebrity news and entertainment site hol- his name or the alphabet, then watch this “It seems there is something really im- lywoodlife.com. Beyond identifying per- 4-year-old’s stubborn side kick in. He portant about manually manipulating and sonality traits through handwriting, called spurns practice at school and tosses aside drawing out two-dimensional things we see graphology, some doctors treating neuro- workbooks at home. But Angie Pike, all the time,” says Karin Harman James, as- logical disorders say handwriting can be an Zane’s mom, persists, believing that hand- sistant professor of psychology and neuro- early diagnostic tool. writing is a building block to learning. science at Indiana University who led the “Some patients bring in journals from She’s right. Using advanced tools such study. the years, and you can see dramatic change as magnetic resonance imaging, research- Adults may benefit similarly when from when they were 55 and doing fine and ers are finding that writing by hand is more learning a new graphically different lan- now at 70,” says P. Murali Doraiswamy, than just a way to communicate. The prac- guage, such as Mandarin, or symbol sys- a neuroscientist at Duke University. “As tice helps with learning letters and shapes, tems for mathematics, music and chemis- more people lose writing skills and migrate can improve idea composition and expres- try, Dr. James says. For instance, in a 2008 to the computer, retraining people in hand- sion, and may aid fine motor-skill develop- study in the Journal of Cognitive Neurosci- writing skills could be a useful cognitive ment. ence, adults were asked to distinguish be- exercise.” It’s not just children who benefit. Adults tween new characters and a mirror image In high schools, where laptops are in- studying new symbols, such as Chinese of them after producing the characters us- creasingly used, handwriting still mat- characters, might enhance recognition by ing pen-and-paper writing and a computer ters. In the essay section of SAT college- writing the characters by hand, research- keyboard. The result: For those writing by entrance exams, scorers unable to read a ers say. Some physicians say handwriting hand, there was stronger and longer-lasting student’s writing can assign that portion an could be a good cognitive exercise for baby recognition of the characters’ proper orien- “illegible” score of 0. boomers working to keep their minds sharp tation, suggesting that the specific move- Even legible handwriting that’s messy as they age. ments memorized when learning how to can have its own ramifications, says Steve Studies suggest there’s real value in write aided the visual identification of Graham, professor of education at Vander- learning and maintaining this ancient skill, graphic shapes. bilt University. He cites several studies in- even as we increasingly communicate elec- Other research highlights the hand’s dicating that good handwriting can take a tronically via keyboards big and small. unique relationship with the brain when it generic classroom test score from the 50th Indeed, technology often gets blamed for comes to composing thoughts and ideas. percentile to the 84th percentile, while handwriting’s demise. But in an interest- Virginia Berninger, a professor of edu- bad penmanship could tank it to the 16th. ing twist, new software for touch-screen cational psychology at the University of “There is a reader effect that is insidious,” devices, such as the iPad, is starting to rein- Washington, says handwriting differs from Dr. Graham says. “People judge the quality vigorate the practice. typing because it requires executing se- of your ideas based on your handwriting.” Most schools still include conventional quential strokes to form a letter, whereas In children who had practiced writing by handwriting instruction in their primary- keyboarding involves selecting a whole hand, the scans showed heightened brain grade curriculum, but today that amounts letter by touching a key. activity in a key area, circled on the image to just over an hour a week, according to She says pictures of the brain have illus- at right, indicating learning took place. Zaner-Bloser Inc., one of the nation’s larg- trated that sequential finger movements ac- Handwriting-curriculum creators say est handwriting-curriculum publishers. tivated massive regions involved in think- they’re seeing renewed interest among Even at institutions that make it a strong ing, language and working memory—the parents looking to hone older children’s priority, such as the private Brearley School system for temporarily storing and manag- skills—or even their own penmanship. in New York City, “some parents say, ‘I ing information. Nan Barchowsky, who developed the Bar- can’t believe you are wasting a minute on And one recent study of hers demon- chowsky Fluent Handwriting method to this,’” says Linda Boldt, the school’s head strated that in grades two, four and six, ease transition from print-script to joined of learning skills. children wrote more words, faster, and ex- Continuted next page... Recent research illustrates how writ- pressed more ideas when writing essays by cursive letters, says she’s sold more than 1,500 copies of “Fix It … Write” in the past year. Some high-tech allies also are giving the practice an unexpected boost through hand-held gadgets like smartphones and tablets. Dan Feather, a graphic designer and computer consultant in Nashville, Tenn., says he’s “never adapted well to the keypads on little devices.” Instead, he uses a $3.99 An application called “WritePad” on his iPhone. It accepts handwriting input with a finger or stylus, then converts it to text for email, documents or Twitter updates. And apps are helping Zane Pike—the 4-year-old who refused to practice his let- ters. The Cabot, Ark., boy won’t put down his mom’s iPhone, where she’s download- ed a $1.99 app called “abc PocketPhonics.” The program instructs Zane to draw letters with his finger or a stylus; correct move- ments earn him cheering pencils. “He thinks it’s a game,” says Angie Pike. Similarly, kindergartners at Harford Day School in Bel Air, Md., are taught to write on paper but recently also began trac- ing letter shapes on the screen of an iPad using a handwriting app. “Children will be using technology un- like I did, and it’s important for teachers to be familiar with it,” says Kay Crocker, the school’s lead kindergarten teacher. Regard- less of the input method, she says, “You still need to be able to write, and someone needs to be able to read it.” Write to Gwendolyn Bounds at wendy. [email protected].