Mayer Carmen, Wallner Stefanie, Budde-Spengler Nora, Braunert Sabrina, Arndt Petra A, Kiefer Markus
Transfer Centre for Neuroscience and Education, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.
Section for Cognitive Electrophysiology, Department of Psychiatry, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jan 22;10:3054. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03054. eCollection 2019.
During the last years, digital writing devices are increasingly replacing handwriting with pencil and paper. As reading and writing skills are central for education, it is important to know, which writing tool is optimal for initial literacy education. The present training study was therefore set up to test the influence of the writing tool on the acquisition of literacy skills at the letter and word level with various tests in a large sample of kindergarten children ( = 147). Using closely matched letter learning games, children were trained with 16 letters by handwriting with a pencil on a sheet of paper, by writing with a stylus on a tablet computer, or by typing letters using a virtual keyboard on a tablet across 7 weeks. Training using a stylus on a touchscreen is an interesting comparison condition for traditional handwriting, because the slippery surface of a touchscreen has lower friction than paper and thus increases difficulty of motor control. Before training, immediately after training and four to five weeks after training, we assessed reading and writing performance using standardized tests. We also assessed visuo-spatial skills before and after training, in order to test, whether the different training regimens affected cognitive domains other than written language. Children of the pencil group showed superior performance in letter recognition and improved visuo-spatial skills compared with keyboard training. The performance of the stylus group did not differ significantly neither from the keyboard nor from the pencil group. Keyboard training, however, resulted in superior performance in word writing and reading compared with handwriting training with a stylus on the tablet, but not compared with the pencil group. Our results suggest that handwriting with pencil fosters acquisition of letter knowledge and improves visuo-spatial skills compared with keyboarding. At least given the current technological state, writing with a stylus on a touchscreen seems to be the least favorable writing tool, possibly because of increased demands on motor control. Future training studies covering a more extended observation period over years are needed to allow conclusions about long-term effects of writing tools on literacy acquisition as well as on general cognitive development.
在过去几年里，数字书写设备越来越多地取代了用铅笔和纸的手写方式。由于阅读和写作技能是教育的核心，了解哪种书写工具最适合初始识字教育非常重要。因此，本训练研究旨在通过对大量幼儿园儿童样本（n = 147）进行各种测试，来检验书写工具对字母和单词层面识字技能习得的影响。使用紧密匹配的字母学习游戏，让孩子们在7周内通过在纸上用铅笔手写、在平板电脑上用手写笔书写或在平板电脑上使用虚拟键盘打字的方式来学习16个字母。在触摸屏上使用手写笔进行训练是与传统手写方式有趣的比较条件，因为触摸屏的光滑表面摩擦力比纸低，从而增加了运动控制的难度。在训练前、训练后立即以及训练后四到五周，我们使用标准化测试评估阅读和写作表现。我们还在训练前后评估了视觉空间技能，以测试不同的训练方案是否会影响除书面语言之外的认知领域。与键盘训练相比，铅笔组的孩子在字母识别方面表现更优，且视觉空间技能有所提高。手写笔组的表现与键盘组和铅笔组相比均无显著差异。然而，与在平板电脑上用手写笔进行的手写训练相比，键盘训练在单词书写和阅读方面表现更优，但与铅笔组相比则不然。我们的结果表明，与键盘输入相比，用铅笔手写有助于字母知识的习得并提高视觉空间技能。至少在当前的技术状态下，在触摸屏上用手写笔书写似乎是最不利的书写工具，可能是因为对运动控制的要求增加了。需要未来进行持续多年更长观察期的训练研究，以便得出关于书写工具对识字习得以及一般认知发展的长期影响的结论。
