The influence of writing practice on letter recognition in preschool children: A comparison between handwriting and typing

A large body of data supports the view that movement plays a crucial role in letter representation and suggests that handwriting contributes to the visual recognition of letters. If so, changing the motor conditions while children are learning to write by using a method based on typing instead of ha...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta psychologica 2005-05, Vol.119 (1), p.67-79
Main Authors: Longcamp, Marieke, Zerbato-Poudou, Marie-Thérèse, Velay, Jean-Luc
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Child development
Child, Preschool
Children
Developmental psychology
Female
Functional Laterality
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Handwriting
Humans
Learning
Letter recognition
Linguistics
Male
Motor Skills
Motor–perceptual interactions
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor Performance
Recognition (Psychology)
Typing
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A large body of data supports the view that movement plays a crucial role in letter representation and suggests that handwriting contributes to the visual recognition of letters. If so, changing the motor conditions while children are learning to write by using a method based on typing instead of handwriting should affect their subsequent letter recognition performances. In order to test this hypothesis, we trained two groups of 38 children (aged 3–5 years) to copy letters of the alphabet either by hand or by typing them. After three weeks of learning, we ran two recognition tests, one week apart, to compare the letter recognition performances of the two groups. The results showed that in the older children, the handwriting training gave rise to a better letter recognition than the typing training.
ISSN:0001-6918
1873-6297
DOI:10.1016/j.actpsy.2004.10.019