Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning

I think it depends on the way your brain is remembering. Like there are types of memories specific to the sensory modality. For people who have visual memory more developed, I think, writing by hand is better way for remembering.

I understand the "appeal" of writing by hand but here is the thing.

I am told when I was a kid, I started to have a dispensation for writing with my left hand but mums being mums "corrected" me to use my right hand.

This is one theory but I have never enjoyed writing by hand. I just suck at it. I remember all my school life was like "improve your handwriting".

Covid gave me an interesting experience. I had a short exam, like 2 hours during the time and I opted for " remote proctoring".

Suddenly, for the first time in my life I was like "now its my time to shine"

I learned to type from when i was a kid because my handwriting was a physical disability and with typing, I could simply wish that problem away.

This has progressed in my professional career where I can just type for hours at end comfortably but I cannot write my name in block letters on a form. I ask one of my coworkers to do it for me. (Its that bad)

> Like there are types of memories specific to the sensory modality.

My understanding was that this was a myth... what's important is to actively pay attention, which seems to be the point here: "It’s very tempting to type down everything that the lecturer is saying, [...] but you don’t process the incoming information. [...] But when taking notes by hand, it’s often impossible to write everything down; students have to actively pay attention to the incoming information and process it [...]".

So it's not directly the fact of writing with a pen on a piece of paper, but rather the fact that it makes people "actively pay attention".

In my kids school it's iPad and Apple Pencil. Great products.

> A teacher and my parents both tried to improve my penmanship by forcing me to write page and pages of letters.

This is a decent tactic if, like you said, you want to improve your handwriting. You have to want it. You have to go slow and form the letters perfectly every time so you develop that muscle memory. I printed pages of a single letter in the font I wanted to imitate and traced the letters. It's a great activity to do while you're sitting in front of the TV.

edit to clarify: the decent tactic is to re-learn how to form your letters IF you want to improve your handwriting. DO NOT force your kids to do so. It will be counter-productive because they won't focus on forming the letters. They'll speed through it to get it done and wind up with worse handwriting than before. As wccrawford and I both said: You have to want it.