New study shows handwriting boosts early reading skills more than typing

New research published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology suggests that handwriting helps children learn to read more effectively than typing. In an experiment with 5-year-old prereaders, those who practiced writing by hand—either by copying or tracing—outperformed children who typed the same material on a keyboard across a variety of tasks. The findings provide strong support for the idea that the physical act of writing strengthens children’s ability to learn letters and words.

The study was conducted by researchers in Spain who wanted to better understand how different modes of writing—handwriting versus typing—affect early reading development. The recent shift toward digital learning tools has raised concerns that increasing reliance on keyboards may hinder key aspects of early literacy, particularly the learning of alphabetic and orthographic knowledge. Alphabetic knowledge refers to the ability to link letter shapes with their corresponding sounds, while orthographic knowledge involves recognizing familiar patterns and sequences of letters in words.

“As children write less and less by hand, we wanted to explore the impact of this on alphabetic and orthographic skills. In other words, we wanted to see whether the ability to learn letters and to assimilate and remember word structure develops differently through manual training or the use of keyboards,” explained study author Joana Acha, a researcher and lecturer at the University of the Basque Country.

To explore this issue, the researchers designed an experiment with 50 children in the final year of kindergarten. All the children were native Spanish speakers and had not yet learned to read. Each child was randomly assigned to one of four training conditions. Two of the groups learned letters and words through handwriting: one group copied the letters freehand, while the other traced them. The remaining two groups learned the same material by typing—either using a single consistent font or with fonts that varied to simulate different handwriting styles.

The experiment unfolded over three sessions. In the first session, the children’s general skills were assessed, including their knowledge of Spanish letters, memory, and fine motor abilities. In the second and third sessions, the children were trained on unfamiliar letters taken from Georgian and Armenian alphabets, along with made-up two-syllable words formed from these letters. During training, children were shown each letter or word, heard its pronunciation, and then reproduced it using their assigned method. Training was followed by tests that measured how well they could recognize, name, and write the trained material.

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The results showed a clear advantage for handwriting. Children who trained by hand-copying or tracing consistently performed better than those in the typing groups. After letter training, handwriting groups were significantly more accurate when naming and writing the letters, both key indicators of alphabetic learning. All children could visually recognize the letters at a high level, suggesting that identification alone is not the best measure of alphabetic knowledge. The real difference emerged when tasks required recalling sounds and producing written letters, skills essential for reading and spelling.

The handwriting advantage extended beyond individual letters. In the word learning tasks, children in the handwriting groups were better at reading aloud the trained pseudowords, writing them from dictation, and identifying them among visually similar alternatives. In contrast, children in the typing groups struggled with these tasks, especially when it came to spelling the trained words.

The researchers also explored whether variability in how letters appeared—such as different fonts or handwritten forms—might improve learning by helping children form more robust mental representations of letters. While there was some evidence for this in the letter naming task, the effects were much smaller than those associated with handwriting. Overall, the study found limited support for the idea that visual variability alone, without physical writing, improves learning.

These findings support the graphomotor hypothesis, which suggests that the physical act of forming letters by hand enhances the mental representation of those letters. Writing by hand involves coordinated movements, attention to shape, and sensorimotor feedback—all of which seem to reinforce learning. Typing, by contrast, requires only pressing a key, which may not engage the same cognitive or neural processes.

Interestingly, children who copied letters by hand outperformed those who traced them, especially in tasks that required more memory effort, such as writing from dictation. This suggests that generating letters freehand, which allows for greater variation in the output, may help children build more flexible and enduring representations of written forms. Still, both handwriting conditions outperformed typing.

These findings align with a recent study published in Frontiers in Psychology, which found that handwriting activates more extensive and interconnected brain networks than typing. Using brain imaging, researchers observed stronger neural connectivity during handwriting, particularly in areas tied to memory and sensory processing. The results suggest that handwriting engages the brain in ways that support learning more effectively than typing.

The study’s authors caution that their findings do not mean digital tools have no place in early education. However, they suggest that relying too heavily on typing-based programs—especially during the early stages of reading acquisition—may leave children with weaker foundations in letter–sound mapping and word recognition. These foundational skills are essential for reading fluency and academic success in later years.

Several limitations should be considered. The sample size was modest, with only 12 to 13 children per training condition, which may have limited the ability to detect smaller effects. Additionally, the study measured only short-term learning. Future research could explore whether the benefits of handwriting persist over time and how they interact with the broader range of digital experiences children encounter in modern classrooms.

Despite these caveats, the results provide evidence that handwriting helps young children master both the building blocks of reading and the structure of written language. As digital devices become more common in classrooms, the researchers recommend that handwriting remain a central part of early literacy instruction.

The study, “The impact of handwriting and typing practice in children’s letter and word learning: Implications for literacy development,” was authored by Gorka Ibaibarriaga, Joana Acha, and Manuel Perea.