“Man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children, but no child has an instinctive tendency to bake, brew, or write.”
(Charles Darwin. The Descent of Man)
There are neural connections between the brain areas that process the visual shapes of objects (this includes letter shapes) and speech sounds. These ‘fuzzy’ connections extend into two nearby motor areas of the brain- those that control the sequence of muscle movements required for hand gestures and those for the muscles of the mouth, lips and tongue. Synkinesia (to move together) is the term used for the effects caused by this neural cross-activation. Professor Ramachandran talked about these connections in the BBC Radio 4 Reith lectures he gave in 2003:
www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/lecturer.shtml
Note, synesthesia is where two or more bodily senses are neurally coupled, for example, in grapheme-colour synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently coloured (Wikipedia).
Now we know that our vision, hearing, mouth and hand muscles are all linked and cross-activated in the brain, it becomes obvious why it is so important that early decoding and spelling lessons should provide multi-modal tasks that reinforce all possible sensory and motor systems in tandem: listening (phoneme analysis), looking (discriminate letter shapes/learn spelling patterns, visual tracking), writing (kinesthetic movement), and speaking (speech-motor system, auditory feedback) to anchor the spelling code in memory as quickly as possible.
Forming invisible letter shapes in the air (sky writing), on a textured board or on a person’s back/forearm, is not a useful activity. Memory for letter shapes can be greatly improved by creating cross modal connections, but two or more sensory modes must be connected at the same time; real writing is movement made visible. (McGuinness. 1998 p.233)
”(C)hildren find it easier to remember spellings if they can remember the movement of the hand in forming the word; hence the reason most people, when asked to spell a difficult word, prefer to write it down. Janet Townend, past head of training at Dyslexia Action, says this kind of multi-sensory approach is particularly helpful for dyslexic children. “Fluency of writing helps with fluency of spelling,” she says. “If children can see words on the page, feel them in their mouth and experience the movement of writing as well, that helps enormously with spelling”
(TES. 11/04 p.12)
Dictation:
http://www.spelfabet.com.au/2013/02/dictation-doesnt-make-you-a-dictator/
Doing dictation doesn’t make you a dictator. Alison Clarke.
The building blocks of writing:
https://theliteracyblog.com/2019/08/01/the-building-blocks-of-writing/
”Over the following two weeks, having been introduced to < n >, < o > and < p >, they will be reading and writing more than thirty words. And, it is at this point that dictation becomes a powerful tool for establishing what a sentence looks like: it begins with a capital letter; it ends in a full stop. Much more importantly, dictation gives the kind of retrieval practice so vaunted by cognitive psychologists in getting information into long-term memory.”
”Though speaking is biologically natural, neither writing per se (representation of spoken language) nor writing in text is biologically natural. We use dictation after only the first seven weeks of teaching phonics.”
(John Walker. Sounds-Write)
Handwriting
”There is a growing field of research that supports the French belief that handwriting is an important skill—not just for its own sake, but because it correlates with other important skills and brain functions, such as language learning, reading development, and working memory.”
Susan Vachon. Why Learning to Write by Hand Matters
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-why-learning-to-write-by-hand-matters/2014/03
”There is no need to start the formal teaching of handwriting before Reception, but children at the end of the EYFS should be able to ‘hold a pencil effectively in preparation for fluent writing – using the tripod grip in almost all cases…Delaying teaching joined handwriting gives teachers and children time to focus on other aspects of the writing process, such as composition, spelling and forming letters correctly.”
(2022. Ofsted Research Review Series. English)
Left-handers need to be shown how to angle the paper and write the letters with their hand below the line rather than by hooking their hand over the top of the line. With initial guidance, left-handed children can be taught to handwrite just as legibly as right-handed children.
Late b/d reversal is linked to poor handwriting instruction. Students with this difficulty habitually start writing both letters at the same point on the line, resulting in a failure to distinguish between them. (Tricia Millar). One way to remediate b / d confusion is to show the child how to use their own mouth shape as a cue: ”Make your mouth the shape to say a letter /b/, your lips make a straight line, so you write the letter that starts with a straight line – the b. When you start to say /d/ your lips and tongue make a circle (ish) so that’s the letter that starts with a circle.”
”Children learn letters by writing them, not from looking at them or from letter tiles. They say the sound the letter(s) stands for as they write it (not the letter name).”
(D. McGuinness 2002. RRF newsletter 49)
Examining the transcription-writing link: Effects of handwriting fluency and spelling accuracy on writing performance via planning and translating in middle grades:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S104160801630262X
The Importance of Handwriting in Education:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338673100_THE_IMPORTANCE_OF_HANDWRITING_IN_EDUCATION
”(T)he role of orthographic motor integration and automaticity in handwriting is now seen as of key importance in composing. Evidence from existing studies suggests that handwriting intervention programmes may have a real impact on the composing skills of young writers. In particular, they could positively affect the progress of the many boys who struggle with writing throughout the primary school years.”
https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/2016/02/16/long-live-good-old-handwriting-an-effective-tool-for-learning/
Learning to read/recognize letters via handwriting vs via keyboard/tablet.
Why the pen is mightier than the keyboard:
https://theliteracyblog.com/2011/10/15/why-the-pen-is-mightier-than-the-keyboard/
Hands help us to see!
https://theliteracyblog.com/2013/09/18/hands-help-us-to-see/
http://www.intechopen.com/books/advances-in-haptics/digitizing-literacy-reflections-on-the-haptics-of-writing
Writing by hand helps with reading, spelling and possibly language development.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317232135_Handwriting_automaticity_and_writing_instruction_in_Australian_kindergarten_An_exploratory_study
“Reading and writing share the same network in terms of brain development, and this research actually adds more information by saying that handwriting by paper and pen has major advantages.”
https://learningspy.co.uk/writing/handwriting-matters/
Handwriting at secondary school: ”It turns out that handwriting casts a halo effect. We tend to assume that people with well-formed, easily legible handwriting are also cleverer. Although handwriting never features in GCSE or A level exam rubrics, the effects of handwriting bias are well established.”