Pen mightier than keyboard: study

The pen seems to be mightier than the computer keyboard, says a new study.

Second, fourth and sixth grade children with and without handwriting disabilities were able to write more and faster when using a pen than a keyboard to compose essays.

The study, headed by Virginia Berninger, University of Washington (UW) professor of educational psychology, looked at children's ability to write the alphabet, sentences and essays using a pen and a keyboard.

"Children consistently did better writing with a pen when they wrote essays. They wrote more and they wrote faster," said Berninger.

Only for writing the alphabet was the keyboard better than the pen. For sentences results were mixed.

But when using a pen, the children in all three grade levels produced longer essays and composed them at a faster pace.

In addition, fourth and sixth graders wrote more complete sentences when they used a pen. The ability to write complete sentences was not affected by the children's spelling skills.

The research also showed that many children don't have a reliable idea of what a sentence is until the third or fourth grade.

"Children first have to understand what a sentence or a complete thought is before they can write one," Berninger said.

"Talking is very different from writing. We don't talk in complete sentence. In conversation we produce units smaller and larger than sentences."

Berninger and her colleagues recruited more than 200 normally developing children for the study, said an UW release.

These findings were published in the current issue of the journal Learning Disability Quarterly.

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