# Handwriting vs typing



## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

https://www.thehomeschoolmom.com/handwriting-hardwired-for-writing/

here is an article. It´s not about homeschooling even though it´s published on this site.
It´s about importance of handwriting. What do you think about that?
I´m just a bit worried, because I type too much....

"Writing has always been and will always be a vital link between human beings." - an author of the article is way too optimistic on future of handwriting.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Tell that to all the youngsters with their nimble thumbs thumbing away at their mobile devices. I wonder if they can even hold a pen anymore.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Tell that to all the youngsters with their nimble thumbs thumbing away at their mobile devices. I wonder if they can even hold a pen any more.


I do thin they ask: what's a pen?


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Pugg said:


> I do thin they ask: what's a pen?


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

I do blog quite a lot, so I use old fashioned fountain pen for drafts and then I type it. So a bit of both for me. I miss my old typewriter though. Loved it!!


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## Guest (Aug 17, 2016)

My job requires use of a keyboard, but very little writing. This is my excuse for my writing being so illegible.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Handwriting really takes consistent practice, but I can see how it could become very enjoyable. I did journalling by hand for a while, after having used a computer for all my writing purposes for years (my mid teens into the early 20s, which are hitting the mid 20s about now), and my hand would often get tired and I'd quit writing. My thought pace had been so adjusted to my typing pace, and I'd get bored writing. But more recently, I decided to make an effort with penmanship, be more patient, not just scribble it out automatically. The result looked nice, but I also found myself thinking better(often thinking ahead to the complete sentence thought and as each words and letters were coming out of the pen tip, I would adjust phrasing and word choice subtly when the inspiration occurred) and coming up with different thoughts and ways to describe, than I would on the computer. I need to start doing it again!


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

This sounds desperately out of touch with reality to me.

Maybe the ancients carving out cueniform characters in clay, using a stylus, were feeling the same about the act of writing in paper using a pen. 

Due to my age, I was trained in pen writing (and old typewriters, too). Then, I switched to keyboard, and now to mobile, and I haven't noticed this is affecting my thinking at all. 

I hope in the not so distant future, to be able to transfer my words directly to a digital media from my brain.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

clavichorder said:


> The result looked nice, but I also found myself thinking better(often thinking ahead to the complete sentence thought and as each words and letters were coming out of the pen tip, I would adjust phrasing and word choice subtly when the inspiration occurred) and coming up with different thoughts and ways to describe, than I would on the computer. I need to start doing it again!


I liked this of what you've said particularly very much. It's about thinking ahead while by typing on the computer it's the same speech speed.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Nothing better then sending your birthday and Christmas greetings handwritten .:cheers:


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I type so much now and rarely write and my handwriting has deteriorated from lack of use. I like writing so I must go back to basics and re-learn how to do it properly.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

My handwriting has deteriorated over the years so that now I have to write in capitals to be legible.

On the other hand, the word processor has been an enormous boon to those of us who remember struggling to type a letter in the days of and ink ribbon and Tipp-Ex.


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## Guest (Aug 17, 2016)

Although I seem to recall that Tipp-Ex was useful as a milk substitute for poisoning your boss.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

schigolch said:


> This sounds desperately out of touch with reality to me.
> 
> Maybe the ancients carving out cueniform characters in clay, using a stylus, were feeling the same about the act of writing in paper using a pen.


Yes, grumbling individuals with antiquated tastes romanticize/fetishize the past, we all know this. But that doesn't mean that the practice of a technique was invented/discovered along the way of "progress" but is becoming less used, doesn't have the potential to improve one's thinking or state of mind. I remember in elementary school my handwriting was very good, I drew the letters out more. I enjoyed it. Come middle school, lots of timed test taking that I was not particularly good at, gave me some pretty ugly and illegible chicken scratch. And I stopped even enjoying writing by hand, but could do it when needed. Then I made a conscious effort to improve it again, and I find it a very nice thing to do, and very useful too.

It's physical and cognitive. Handwriting makes use of one's fine motor skills when you take the time to be less *automatic* about it. Punching keys does in fact require less of fine motor skills once one is comfortable with the keyboard layout. By the same token, you can be less automatic on the keyboard, but we have a wide arsenal of techniques now to keep us from being like fixed gear bikes in the pace and style of our thinking and communication, if we are so desirous of doing so. This is me personally, but I'm all for anything that causes one to be a little more aware and finely in tune with what they are doing.


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

clavichorder said:


> Yes, grumbling individuals with antiquated tastes romanticize/fetishize the past, we all know this.


Well I guess I fall into this category.:lol: My antiquated musical tastes have led me to this site, after all...

I was taught handwriting at an early age. I use "snail" mail quite often, and keep a commonplace book by my reading chair to write down interesting quotes and observations I may make. The postils I write in the margin of books for reference are in longhand. When I receive correspondence from my friends, the quality of their handwriting indicates the tenor of their mood. An anecdote: A friend of long acquaintance, an intelligent reader, and a raconteur of the first water, once told me that he had as a youth beautiful handwriting, but his skill had diminished through long disuse. He regretted his loss, because he felt that any letter he might write to a stranger would give a bad first impression. I told him that, like riding a bicycle, that skill could be recovered.

Beautiful handwriting is increasingly becoming a lost art, except in the narrow confines of the artistic calligrapher. I inwardly groan when I see someone with a Montblanc pen write crude missives in block letters. It is akin, I suppose, to watching a Country musician playing _The Great Speckled Bird_ with a Stradivari. I think I will stop here. As you can tell, this really is the grumblings of an individual with antiquated tastes.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Japan .


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

The author of that article promoting handwriting should chew on this:

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...rn-cursive/handwriting-matters-cursive-doesnt


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Japan .


right . I´ve got it


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I have the world's worst penminship, so I don't even attempt cursive writing anymore. And I never learned proper typing technique. I use one finger, and I can't take my eyes off the keyboard.


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## Johnnie Burgess (Aug 30, 2015)

Florestan said:


> The author of that article promoting handwriting should chew on this:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...rn-cursive/handwriting-matters-cursive-doesnt


They also printed this: The Benefits of Cursive Go Beyond Writing

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...ive/the-benefits-of-cursive-go-beyond-writing


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

I more or less gave up handwriting about 8 years ago. I can now barely hold a pen to write, because of illness. However my typing is much less affected. 

Fortunately this has happened at a time when technology has supplied me with easy-to-manipulate keyboards. I'd be a bit lost without them.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

I'm a southpaw. This always made handwriting difficult for me, as my arm goes into my body as I write, as opposed to a right hander whose arm moves away. Bad handwriting was a significant reason why achieving my professional qualification was delayed for ten years and effectively delayed my personal and financial progress for the same period. For me, having a keyboard evens things up a bit.

Having said that, back in the day, I liked how you would automatically know who wrote something by seeing their handwriting. Keyboards provide much greater opportunities for fraud.

Also, the art of letter writing seems to have largely disappeared. When one had to go the trouble of getting together pen, paper, envelope, address book and stamp, before taking the missive through the rain to the post box, a letter would have to be both worthwhile and necessary, unlike the numerous emails and forum posts which are rushed off today.

Overall, I much prefer keyboards, particularly as they are part of a system which enables immediate and easy global communication for the minority of us who have access to keyboards and the internet.


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## Guest (Aug 19, 2016)

schigolch said:


> This sounds desperately out of touch with reality to me.
> 
> Maybe the ancients carving out cueniform characters in clay, using a stylus, were feeling the same about the act of writing in paper using a pen.
> 
> ...


Whilst I mostly type, I do find that if I want to rough out an idea - smash it down on paper, as a colleague used to say - pencil is best (and not pen as I've never yet mastered proper control of the slippy tip). Typing is great for crafting and editing, but not for creating.

So for me, the medium definitely affects my thinking - not the quality, I hope, but the mode.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

TurnaboutVox said:


> I more or less gave up handwriting about 8 years ago. I can now barely hold a pen to write, because of illness. However my typing is much less affected.


So sorry to hear that TV.



TurnaboutVox said:


> Fortunately this has happened at a time when technology has supplied me with easy-to-manipulate keyboards. I'd be a bit lost without them.


Technology has enabled a great many more people to communicate with the world outside.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

As a "youngster", I've noticed how quickly my hand tires when writing. I'm so used to typing that I seem to just be more adept at it now. I type 110 WPM most of the time, whereas my hands sometimes feel stiff and awkward when I write. 

That said, I've always had neat handwriting and even when I go a while without ever writing anything, my handwriting's neatness never degrades.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I was brought up to a Copperplate hand, which we used to practise diligently at primary school. Then, when I became a teacher myself, I started out in a junior school that used Marion Richardson, which is basically a partially joined italic hand. I had to teach that & enjoyed it, because you start your seven-year-olds on the printed italics & then they move on to joining. I took a lot of time on teaching handwriting because as all exams were hand-written I thought it would benefit my pupils for later - and indeed, when I held positions teaching A-level English, I found that some pupils were handicapped by their inability to hand-write quickly or legibly.

Incidentally, the handwriting practice - copying poems, science information, proverbs - was not wasted time. My pupils enjoyed it & often 'opted' to do it in free choice lessons, and they all became very accurate in observing & copying which I believe benefits any school subject.

When I was at university, my Chinese room-mate taught me how to touch type - it was a skill her father had taught her so that she could type frequent airmail letters home to Hong Kong. I've enjoyed typing ever since - written poetry (by hand - then typed up) all my life & have also typed several (unpublished) historical novels for fun over the past twenty years. Result - when I came back to my violin five years ago, I found that my fingers were nicely supple, in fact better than when I was young!

I love typing, but I still love writing too. My handwriting is neat & legible, and is now mainly Marion Richardson with the odd Copperplate loop.

Typing - handwriting - bowing: it all makes me feel *empowered*.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> I was brought up to a Copperplate hand, which we used to practise diligently at primary school. Then, when I became a teacher myself, I started out in a junior school that used Marion Richardson, which is basically a partially joined italic hand. I had to teach that & enjoyed it, because you start your seven-year-olds on the printed italics & then they move on to joining. I took a lot of time on teaching handwriting because as all exams were hand-written I thought it would benefit my pupils for later - and indeed, when I held positions teaching A-level English, I found that some pupils were handicapped by their inability to hand-write quickly or legibly.
> 
> Incidentally, the handwriting practice - copying poems, science information, proverbs - was not wasted time. My pupils enjoyed it & often 'opted' to do it in free choice lessons, and they all became very accurate in observing & copying which I believe benefits any school subject.
> 
> ...


Is Marion Richardson the one with triangles for 'Os' etc and each letter joined to the next with a tail? If so, we had that at Primary school in the late 60s.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Wood said:


> Is Marion Richardson the one with triangles for 'Os' etc and each letter joined to the next with a tail? If so, we had that at Primary school in the late 60s.


I don't remember the triangles, but each letter *is* slightly angular, like italics, and most letters did indeed have a tail for joining on, though some letters - g, for example - didn't, so you left a small gap. The era is about right, so I imagine that you did learn Marion Richardson.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> I don't remember the triangles, but each letter *is* slightly angular, like italics, and most letters did indeed have a tail for joining on, though some letters - g, for example - didn't, so you left a small gap. The era is about right, so I imagine that you did learn Marion Richardson.


That is interesting, it sounds like the same thing. I still have my old English exercise book somewhere. I'd have been 7. My letters were HUGE,the largest font size here doesn't come close.

Infant school had a different method, called ITA I think. This involved changing some vowels, or vowel combinations into certain symbols which were used instead of the letters. It didn't work for me. I learnt to read and write before school, then had to learn ITA, then Marion Richardson. I don't think that ITA lasted very long.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Wood said:


> That is interesting, it sounds like the same thing. I still have my old English exercise book somewhere. I'd have been 7. My letters were HUGE,the largest font size here doesn't come close.
> 
> Infant school had a different method, called ITA I think. This involved changing some vowels, or vowel combinations into certain symbols which were used instead of the letters. It didn't work for me. I learnt to read and write before school, then had to learn ITA, then Marion Richardson. I don't think that ITA lasted very long.


You're absolutely right. :tiphat:
ITA was still being plugged when I was teacher training but I never had to teach it. I did, though, come across children whose spelling and reading skills had been ruined by the transition from ITA to traditional orthography and who had lost confidence as a result. Some of them even had to take remedial classes. The theory sounds good but the reality didn't seem to match.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> You're absolutely right. :tiphat:
> ITA was still being plugged when I was teacher training but I never had to teach it. I did, though, come across children whose spelling and reading skills had been ruined by the transition from ITA to traditional orthography and who had lost confidence as a result. Some of them even had to take remedial classes. The theory sounds good but the reality didn't seem to match.


That is very interesting to hear from the professional side. I'd never been sure whether it was just me, or a minority that ITA didn't suit, but it sounds like it was a bit of a failed experiment.

This takes me back 48 years:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I prefer typing simply because my handwriting is terrible. I'm left handed and when I was at school that meant risking smearing the ink from my fountain pen as the writing hand was BEHIND what I was writing. As a result I had to crook my hand above the ink and thus the quality of my penmanship was doomed forever, even when using a biro, felt tip or pencil.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

starthrower said:


> I have the world's worst penminship, so I don't even attempt cursive writing anymore. And I never learned proper typing technique. I use one finger, and I can't take my eyes off the keyboard.


I was a one finger (per hand) typist until in college I figured I was going to have to start writing my own papers. I found out where the finger placement on the keyboard is and what fingers were used for each key. Then I continued my one-finger typing method (looking at each key as I pushed it) but using all the correct fingers. As I forced myself to type that way, after some time (can't remember how long) my fingers got used to it and eventually I was able to type mostly not looking at the keyboard. I think overall it was several years for the complete process, but it was worth it.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

elgars ghost said:


> I prefer typing simply because my handwriting is terrible. I'm left handed and when I was at school that meant risking smearing the ink from my fountain pen as the writing hand was BEHIND what I was writing. As a result I had to crook my hand above the ink and thus the quality of my penmanship was doomed forever, even when using a biro, felt tip or pencil.


You're in very good company.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

^
^

We could be twins (although I wear my watch on the right wrist). :lol:

Question - would it be easier for a left-handed person to write Arabic or Hebrew as they are written from right to left?


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

For the last few years I've been teaching 6 and 7 year olds but this year I'm working right across the school (up to P7 - Year 6 in England). Ironically I'm covering ICT in most year groups with a particular emphasis on word processing. Normally, with the younger children I teach them handwriting using one of a variety of handwriting schemes (Nelson, etc) but I have also taught true cursive from nursery without using any particular scheme, apart from the school's writing policy. Both writing and word processing skills are as important as each other these days but none of them are any use if children can't read!


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Tell that to all the youngsters with their nimble thumbs thumbing away at their mobile devices. I wonder if they can even hold a pen anymore.


Classic generational type ragging on the young. Silly. Stereotypical griping. Like this (and all other generational-based accusations) assumes older people don't do the same thing...?


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## Guest (Aug 22, 2016)

Avey said:


> assumes older people don't do the same thing...?


We don't - at least, not at the same speed. I can confrim the accuracy of that streeotyping as i try to speed write on my comppc thingy.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> We don't - at least, not at the same speed. I can confrim the accuracy of that streeotyping as i try to speed write on my comppc thingy.


Stereotypically yours...


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## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I absolutely despise handwriting. It is much slower, for most people less l legible, and it makes your hand tired. to me text is for communication foremost and I think communication with typed text is just superior from a purely utilitarian outlook.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

My penmanship was always terrible (always got Cs and Ds in grade school) -- but learning to write on a typewriter was invaluable and had many of the same advantages of writing by hand. If you didn't know where a sentence was going when you started it, or you messed up some other way in the middle of a page, there was nothing to do but pull it out and type the page over from the top. It really forced you to think while you were writing.


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## SarahNorthman (Nov 19, 2014)

Handwriting is definitely preferable in my world.


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