Overcoming Teen Handwriting Struggles in the Digital Age

Teen handwriting is slowly starting to disappear thanks to the digital shift in modern communications. Here’s why handwriting is still important and what parents can do to promote good penmanship as part of a well-rounded education.

Advances in technology will always impact education because they change what skills should be prioritized for the future. Perhaps the bigger impact, however, is how technological advances alter the emphasis of education. 

Consider the rise of computers. Now that we have spelling and grammar checkers built into nearly every word-processing platform, the educational emphasis on writing hasn’t decreased, but it has shifted. Spell-check technology actually seems to have sped up the learning process by allowing students to identify and correct their spelling and grammar errors in real time. The large number of homophones in English however, makes a program like Spelling You See a terrific addition to your curriculum, as it helps students develop the visual response of an adept speller.

In ages past, intense emphasis on spelling and grammar rules was necessary, considering longhand was the dominant form of composition for most correspondence and scholarly writing. Today’s students, however, begin typing as early as the third grade but practice their handwriting skills less and less.

This is a double-edged sword. While it is good that students are developing strong typing skills early, it is still important that they also develop good handwriting. Far from being an antiquated practice, writing by hand provides numerous academic benefits, both direct and indirect.

Schools are emphasizing handwriting less, and other ways of communicating more. But handwriting is still important. Let’s explore why and how you can help your teen improve theirs.

The Elimination of Cursive from Common Core Standards

The US Department of Education officially removed cursive from the Common Core standard in 2010. Print, however, is still a part of a standard elementary school education.

One important loss here is that fewer students will be able to read important historical documents, such as the US Constitution, in their original print.

It could be argued that digital literacy is more important for most students since these documents can still be read in block letters. In the past, the main advantage of learning cursive was that it was fast. But that is less of an advantage today.

Communication is Becoming Multi-Modal

The shift away from penmanship is really part of a broader shift in the way we communicate. Communication is becoming multi-modal in that we have more options than ever before.

It’s not just that keyboards are replacing pencils. At the same time, voice dictation tools are becoming ever more popular, meaning that more and more people are writing by talking. A full 20% of Google searches are now done by voice input.

This development can help improve students’ speech abilities … but it also takes time away from practicing typing or handwriting.

The best course of action is probably to train students to communicate effectively through several different modalities, including handwriting, keyboarding, and speech.

Given the ever-growing popularity of video communication, it may also be good for students to become comfortable delivering presentations in front of a camera.

Why Handwriting is Still Important

The most obvious reason handwriting remains essential and relevant is because learning to write properly by hand aids in literacy and letter development. Writing out each letter stroke by stroke stimulates the brain to make deeper linguistic associations.

Handwriting also improves fine motor skills. Penmanship is usually one of the first fine motor skills that a child learns, and it builds both strong hand muscles and nerve endings. The child can then apply those advantages later towards other skills, such as playing a musical instrument.

Handwriting is an important outlet for self-expression. While faster, typing conveys nothing of the individual choice of stroke and letter shape.

Although computers have become virtually ubiquitous in the classroom, many students still do in-class assignments on paper. They also still need to have legible handwriting when taking exams in secondary school and in college.

When writing by hand, students slow down thinking and information processing. This is good because it encourages deeper, more deliberative connections rather than rapid leaps to conclusions. The Internet would be a very different place if every tweet and post had to be written by hand.

In the same vein, writing by hand prevents copy-pasting. Copy-pasting can be a useful tool in many contexts, but it impedes performance when it prevents you from reading and processing whatever it is you are pasting.

Finally, writing by hand encourages selective note-taking. Research suggests that students who type notes in lectures tend to process less information since they try to write everything down. By selectively choosing what to write, the brain makes more sense of the lecture and thus provides a deeper understanding of the material for the learner.

How to Improve Writing and Penmanship Skills with Your Teen

Handwriting is something that you and your children should treat seriously–in the same way you would treat a sport or art. In that sense, you might compare penmanship to swordsmanship.

One of the easiest and most effective tools? Practice sheets. Simply writing out a letter or word correctly a hundred times can rewire your muscle memory to do so better in the future. If that sounds boring, you can put on some music while you trace.

As an instructor, you can require that some assignments be handwritten, or alternate assignments between handwritten and typed. In this way, your teen will practice writing in both methods.

For a more artistic approach, try doing some calligraphy projects. This will show your teen the artistic options available with handwriting.

Finally, you can actually use digital technology to encourage handwriting. Tablets are great for this since their handwriting recognition features provide immediate feedback about penmanship. You could have your teen try to browse the web with only a tablet and stylus, which they will probably enjoy using more than just writing on paper anyway.

Ultimately, practicing and improving handwriting does not have to be a chore. Penmanship is still an important and relevant skill, and there are many ways to work on it with your teen.

Interested in learning more? Watch this episode of The Demme Learning Show, which deals with teenage handwriting struggles and features insights from occupational therapist Katie Roe.