The impact of handwriting and typing on the reading acquisition process: a study using an unfamiliar orthography

Abstract

Although there is evidence of a negative impact of typing on letter learning in prereaders, it remains unclear how writing letters and words—either by hand or typing—affects reading acquisition. One possibility is that typing attenuates the recruitment of phonological recoding processes inherent in writing. To address this question, 50 kindergarten children (M age = 5.4 years) were randomly assigned to two groups: one group learned a set of novel letters and words by copying them by hand while listening to their pronunciations, whereas the other group learned the same letters and words by typing them on a computer. Both groups were assessed on three abilities reflecting different stages of reading acquisition: (a) naming the learned letters, (b) decoding novel words composed of the trained letters, and (c) visually identifying the novel words. Children in the handwriting group showed better performance in the letter naming, word decoding, and visual word identification tasks, and only in this group were phonological skills associated with learning outcomes. Regression analysis revealed that word decoding accuracy predicted word identification in the handwriting group, but this relationship was absent in the typing group. These findings suggest that writing letters and words by hand supports the development of phonological recoding skills, which are critical for forming accurate representations of words in memory.