Creative Teaching and Learning

Valuing the Art of Handwriting

Teaching students to write by hand is about much more than developing fine motor skills. Dr Jane Medwell shows how handwriting helps students to tap into their creativity and develop self-expression.

A changing landscape

In the age of computers, many parents and teachers ask why handwriting remains important. We live in an era with unprecedented access to technology, and developments in technologically assisted learning have changed the way that children (and adults) learn. However, with all the benefits that technology brings us in this digital age, we risk losing a part of children’s educational experience that is crucial in building so many essential skills: handwriting. We saw earlier this year that there has been a drastic increase in teachers reporting that their pupils cannot hold pens due to overuse of technology (Hill, 2018). Even further, there are more and more reports that children in primary schools are attempting to ‘swipe’ book pages, having become so used to using a tablet to read (Turner, 2018).

These revelations illuminate a growing issue in UK education: the decline in focus on handwriting, and a lack of recognition of the benefits that handwriting brings. There is a substantial body of research, including Write Your Future’s own Curriculum Development Study (Medwell, 2017), which supports the assertion that handwriting is invaluable for developing a multitude of key skills, from increasing children’s fine motor skills to developing hand muscles in young children. But an area of benefit that is often overlooked in the debate over handwriting and children’s development is its impact on creativity and self-expression.

Often childhood creativity and giving children the ability to express themselves are not prioritised in the same way that other areas of development are. We are, however, seeing a shift in the importance afforded to creativity, a shift reaching decision makers in government. For example, we recently saw that an increasing emphasis on creativity in formal education is being encouraged by the Department for Education, having made £300 million of funding available to young people in schools wanting to engage with the arts, be it through music, dance or other creative subjects (DfE, 2016).

In addition, we are also seeing a pushback against overly prescriptive assessments for primary school-age children, with many teachers and parents advocating for an assessment approach that allows room for children’s self-expression and creativity to be valued.

So, we know that there is an increasing recognition that creativity and self-expression is valued, by parents, teachers, and education policy makers. And this makes it even more important to promote tools like handwriting that have the potential to encourage these qualities.

How does handwriting encourage creativity?

Engaging the brain

There has been much research conducted on the positive impacts that handwriting can have on children physically, including developing dexterity, memory and concentration. There is also evidence that handwriting not only helps these areas of development, but that it also exercises parts of the brain connected with creativity. Recent research suggests there may be link between the movements of writing by hand and increased creative thinking and output.

Research suggests that action of handwriting stimulates certain parts of the brain that encourage creativity in a similar way to that of meditation (James & Engelhardt, 2012). In this sense, we might think of handwriting as a form of mindfulness, engaging the brain in important ways. Importantly, given the context of an increasingly digitalised world, this kind of neurological activity is much less accessible through writing with a laptop or tablet than it is by hand. 

An additional cognitive element that demonstrates the importance of handwriting has emerged in a recent American study conducted by academics at Stanford and Tufts University (Slepian & Ambady, 2012). The study examined fluid arm movements, finding that these movements increased creativity in their subjects, enabling ‘fluid thought’. It is possible therefore, that the fluid movements made through handwriting may prompt similar effects, encouraging creative thought.

There is also the important point that enabling children not just to write, but handwrite with automaticity, frees up their minds to focus on what they are writing. If children are preoccupied and struggling in their later school years with writing letters by hand, this reduces the space for creative thought and free-thinking. 

Last year, I contributed to Write Your Future’s Curriculum Development Study (Medwell, 2017), which gave us some interesting insights into the importance of teaching handwriting. Specifically, our findings highlighted the importance of achieving automaticity in allowing for greater concentration and in relieving frustration at school. 49 per cent of the teachers we asked reported that children who were unable to write clearly at school were the most likely to feel frustrated and lose their motivation to learn. This only reinforces the importance of teaching handwriting well and thoroughly. This is crucial if we are to allow children the headspace to write creatively and to express themselves through the written word.

Finally, of course, we should not forget the basic, creative nature of producing writing by hand, which is, for many, a deeply satisfying and meditative experience in itself. In focusing on what students write, it is easy to forget that the handwriting itself can be creative in a very basic sense.

The value of slowing down

As mentioned, handwriting shares some of the benefits of mindfulness activities and meditation. There is incredible value in allowing children to slow down, stop, and allow their thoughts to develop and materialise. Though not impossible, this is much harder for children to do using a tablet or laptop, where writing happens significantly faster, offering less time to think and meditate on the words being chosen.

This slowness is also valuable as it can help with problem solving. Research published by the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Washington in the United States (Berninger et al., 2006) found that using multiple strokes instead of singular key presses on a laptop or tablet, which requires someone to spend more time on each letter and word, gives the brain more time and space to process and think about what it is producing, leading to more creative writing.

This again highlights that while creativity is, of course, subjective, handwriting is a mechanism that we can use to facilitate children’s creativity, providing them with a tool that lets their natural creativity flow as best as possible.

Self-expression – handwriting helps

The benefits of handwriting go beyond allowing for more creative writing. There is also a lot to be said for its ability to act as a release, encouraging self-expression in children. Simply, handwriting isn’t about neatness or which pupil can write the prettiest cursive letters. It is fundamentally about expressing oneself. And those benefits are far reaching.

As mentioned previously, we are seeing a push-back from teachers and parents against attempts to introduce overly prescriptive assessment criteria and marking guidelines on primary school children. There is in this a definitive call for self-expression to be encouraged and valued in the classroom, and it is therefore incredibly important that we prioritise things, like handwriting, that will help children to engage in these key areas of self-development.

So how can we put this into practice?

My experience with the Write Your Future campaign, working with children in schools to encourage handwriting skills has taught me that it is essential to come up with activities that encourage their active engagement with learning. Often, lessons that teach handwriting to children are dull and demotivating – hardly inspiring creativity.

But there are plenty of ways that we can teach handwriting to children of all ages, making it accessible and fun, and encouraging creative thinking even during the learning process (See Teacher Tips – Write Your Future, 2018).

Top tip – sand drawing

Get your pupils to use a stick to write out letters in a sandbox

This activity is perfect for younger children who are just starting out on their handwriting journey. The activity combines a familiar play activity with learning for children who haven’t had much exposure to writing, engaging their sense of touch whilst teaching them basic handwriting skills.

Top tip – celebrate handwriting

Offer children the chance to write their favorite poems (or quotations) out for a display

Give children a selection of poems to choose from and encourage them to read them aloud to each other, choose particularly interesting combinations of lines and then write out poems, or quotations. It is important to give children the chance to say, discuss and feel the words and how they work together.

Top tip – what’s your passion?

Find out what your class is passionate about. Whether this is climate change, animals, space travel or technology, you can bring these topics to life in the classroom. Ask children to write a few words or a letter about a cause they are interested in. For example, they could create a poster for a wildlife centre or suggest a new spaceship design to NASA.

There’s no better way to encourage children to write creatively than to get them talking (and writing) about something they care about. Finding out their passions is a sure-fire way to combine handwriting practice with creative thinking and writing. Parents can take this further by encouraging their children to write down their imaginative thoughts. Children are full of natural imagination, and getting them to write their creative thoughts down on paper can make a big impact on their handwriting development and on their ability to develop their creative thinking.

Top tip – sometimes looks matter

Get colourful pens and pencils to encourage children to be creative

This may seem elementary, but many teachers may have seen that giving their pupils new and colourful stationary can make the world of difference in how they engage with the tasks set for them. Especially with handwriting, giving children eye-catching resources can motivate them to get stuck into creative writing.

Conclusion

Handwriting is one of the most important, yet often overlooked elements of a child’s education. In today’s digital age, when this basic skill is encountering unprecedented challenge, it is more important than ever to be aware of its far-reaching benefits.

Not only does it have important physical benefits to children’s development, handwriting allows children the time and space to grow their fertile imaginations, giving them the opportunity to articulate their thoughts and to express themselves in an increasingly digitalised world.

We are already seeing steps being taken to formalise the understanding that creativity is valuable in children’s education, so now more than ever, it is important to highlight the benefits that solid handwriting skills can have on fostering the creative process and enabling children to express themselves.

Dr Jane Medwell is the Director of Teaching and Learning in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham and is a partner of the Write your Future Campaign.

To learn more about the importance of handwriting for children’s development, or to use the resources developed by Write Your Future to support teaching handwriting in the classroom, please visit http://www.writeyourfuture.com

References

Berninger, V.W., Abbott, R.D., Jones, J., Wolf, B.J., Gould, L., Anderson-Youngstrom, M., Shimada, S., Apel, K. (2006). Early development of language by hand: Composing, reading, listening, and speaking connections; three letter-writing modes; and fast mapping in spelling. Developmental Neuropsychology 29(1):61-92. 

Department for Education (2016). Thousands of children to benefit from music and arts investment. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-children-to-benefit-from-music-and-arts-investment 

Hill, A. (2018). Children struggle to hold pencils due to too much tech, doctors say. The Guardian, 25 February. https://www.theguardian.com/societyhttps://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/25/children-struggle-to-hold-pencils-due-to-too-much-tech-doctors-say

James, K. & Engelhardt, L. (2012).  The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 1(1): 32-42. 

Medwell, J. (2017). Developing Mark Making and Letter Formation: Curriculum Development Study. Write your Future and University of Nottingham. http://s7d9.scene7.com/is/content/NewellRubbermaid/Write%20Your%20Future/WYF%20CDS%20Summary%20Final%205.25.17%20with%20logo.pdf

Slepian, M.L. & Ambady, N. (2012). Fluid Movement and Creativity. Journal of Experimental Psychology 141(4): 625-629. 

Turner, C. (2018). Children are swiping books in attempt to turn pages after being raised on tablets and phones. The Telegraph, 2 April.  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/02/children-swiping-books-attempt-turn-pages-raised-tablets-phones/

Write Your Future. (2018). Teacher Tips. http://www.writeyourfuture.com/tagged/teacher%20tip