Handwriting is linked to learning, memory and thinking
- Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 18, 2025
- 2 min read
My daughter, a very early reader, learned to write the alphabet when she was three. She wouldn't quit -- "e" was very hard -- till she could write every letter. In kindergarten, demanded to learn script. Her fine-motor skills were nothing special, but she was great at pattern recognition and she had a will of iron. It took about three hours to get the "g" and the "q." She did it.
Writing by hand doesn't just develop fine motor skills, say researchers. It's good for the brain.
Students learn more and remember more when they write by hand, according to Edutopia's 10 most significant education studies of 2025. Typing on a keyboard is not as helpful.
Five-year-old pre-readers learned more letters and words when they practiced by hand rather than typing. Handwriting is an “important tool for learning and memory retention” for students of all ages, another study finds.
Writing by hand is closely connected to thinking concludes a meta-analysis of the research, writes Neil Franklin in Workplace Insight. There is "a clear and consistent link between children’s fine motor skills and how well they perform at school, across reading, writing, mathematics and broader cognitive measures."
Handwriting is a "powerful tool" for learning, write Elizabeth DeWitt, Cheryl Lundy Swift and Christina Bretz in The 74. "A recent study, Writing by Hand Helps Children Learn Letters Better, reinforces this, showing that the physical act of forming letters strengthens memory and accelerates learning."
Writing by hand "activates multiple areas of the brain by combining visual, auditory and kinesthetic input," they write. "Once letter formation becomes automatic, a child’s brain is freed to focus on higher-level thinking."
The benefits don't fade, researchers say."One study found college students who took notes by hand remembered more than those who typed, likely because writing by hand forces the brain to process and summarize information, not just copy it."
Writing sure worked for me and I double-majored and double-minored. Admittedly, all of my degrees were in the before-laptop era, but I took very good, well-organized, comprehensive notes and added comments/questions for follow-up as soon as possible after class.Later, I added material from texts/books.I studied for exams by writing progressively more condensed versions of my notes; until I had a whole notebook reduced to a few index cards. I could be confident that I hadn’t missed anything significant and my method gave me the grades I wanted (in the era when most got “C” and schools didn’t worry about flunk-outs).
I was interested to see that there's a correlation between a child's handwriting and his performance in school.
My own children learned to read very young, before starting preschool. For my son in particular, there was a long time between when he began to read on his own (though he still loved being read to!) and when he was capable of (and willing to) write letters. His fine-motor skills caught up eventually, though; he was always an outstanding student and is writing a PhD dissertation at the moment.
Not surprised at all. I can hold a conversation and type something completely different, can't do that while writing.