Michelle Gallen :: Blog :: Writing without Pencils

http://www.liquidelearning.com/2007/07/writing-without-pencils.html

In 2003 I read this BBC article on teaching children to write using computers, rather than pencils and paper. I haven't heard much about the practice since, but following a conversation with my mother (an ex-primary school teacher) on how myself and my brothers and sisters learned to read and write, I became interested in it again.

In Norway, 18 schools decided to teach children how to write just by using PCs. So instead of spending hours and hours being taught how to draw the 26 letters of the alphabet using one hand, the children are taught how to type using all ten fingers. This makes the act of writing a lot easier for children.

Arne Trageton, the associate professor in education at Stord/Haugesund College says he is not opposed to handwriting. But points out that in the 'real' world, hardly anyone writes by hand anymore. Yet in our schools small children are forced to handwrite at a time when it is a challenge to their developing motorskills.

Traditional hand-writing skills are taught in the Norwegian schools - but they are introduced at the age of 8, when the children pick the skill up much more quickly.

The director of the school district, Vidar Aarhus, describes the practice as 'learning by playing' and believes that the children become better writers because they avoid 'technical difficulties' of mastering the physical act of writing.

Handwriting still matters in today's school system. Despite the fact that most pupils will graduate into a world where the occasional scribbled post-it note is likely to be the most they will have to hand-write, they must take exams by hand. Research has shown that pupils with faster handwriting get better exam results. The researchers who discovered this have recommended that we teach handwriting throughout school. Why? Why not teach children the keyboard skills they're going to need - the skills that will give them an advantage in the 'real' world? And why not let them take exams by PC?

But back to Writing without Pencils. I really like the idea that children can spend time becoming creators at an early age, rather than consumers. And instead of making small children sweat over recreating a legible 'q', you can free them to explore creating words and sentences, to expressing themselves.

Has anyone experienced this method of teaching a child to write?