A child being trained into how to use the keyboard is an example of
learning?
Answers
Explanation:
Top tips for teaching typing
Solid skills take time to develop. Children learn typing by mastering one key at a time and practicing letter combinations, words, phrases and complete sentences. ...
Value accuracy over speed. ...
Practice makes perfect. ...
A little praise goes a long way. ...
Encourage good posture and take breaks.
Answer:
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 (n = 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.
Introduction
Since its early beginnings about 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt, different tools were used to form symbols aimed to store language for a long period of time in written form: Humans imprinted symbols in clay using a stylus or painted them on papyrus, parchment or paper using reed, feather or pen. These tools used for writing by hand have been complemented by other technologies such as stamps, letterpress or typewriter. Nevertheless, for several 1000 years of past literacy culture, handwriting was an important, if not the prevailing mode for writing (Kiefer and Velay, 2016).
During the last years, however, digital writing devices associated with the use of computers, tablet computers or mobile phones are increasingly replacing handwriting (for overviews, see Mangen and Velay, 2010; Radesky et al., 2015; Kiefer and Velay, 2016). The use of digital devices for writing has impact on basic sensory-motor skills: In adults, a high frequency of keyboard use in written text production in everyday life was related to a decrement of the skill to produce precisely controlled arm–hand movements compared with a high frequency of handwriting (Sulzenbrück et al., 2010; Sulzenbrück et al., 2011; Heuer, 2016). In a recent survey among German teachers, poor sensory-motor skills, which are essential for handwriting, were reported to be deficient in young children entering elementary schools, possibly due to lack of prior training and the use of digital media (Marquardt et al., 2016). In the present days, children may get the first everyday writing experiences by typing on a computer or mobile phone, much before they master handwriting (Mangen and Velay, 2010). Additionally, digital devices such as tablet computers are increasingly introduced to kindergarten and elementary schools for educational purposes (Herzig and Grafe, 2006). Even small children intuitively interact with digital devices by typing or touching (Couse and Chen, 2010; Buchegger, 2013). As reading and writing skills are highly relevant for success at school and in professional life (Gut et al., 2012), it is important to know, which writing tool, handwriting with pen(cil) and paper, handwriting with a stylus on a tablet or typing on a keyboard, is optimal for initial literacy education in school children.