Does Handwriting Still Matter in an Age of Typing?

By Laura Lurns · Reviewed by Philip Weaver · Last reviewed 2026-10-19

The short answer is that the evidence is suggestive, not conclusive. It leans toward handwriting for learning letters. The studies of learning letters are small, and all were of young children. They did not test composing.

What the studies of learning letters found

Two studies compared young children learning letters by hand or by keyboard. They were by Longcamp and colleagues (2005) and Kiefer and colleagues (2015). Both looked at learning letters, not handwriting quality. We could read only Longcamp's summary. We read Kiefer's full paper.

Longcamp's study. Two groups of 38 young children copied letters for three weeks. One group wrote by hand. The other typed. In the older children, writing by hand beat typing for knowing letters by sight. It was a short study, and it tested only that.

Kiefer's study. This was in Germany. Twelve preschool children learned letters by hand, and 11 by keyboard. They had 16 sessions with eight letters. The two groups knew and named the letters about equally well. Both scored near the top on those tasks. The handwriting group did better at writing words. On reading words, it was a little ahead, but not clearly. The authors say the small sample limits what the results mean. The children were typical learners.

Two newer papers. One team wrote two more papers (Ibaibarriaga, Acha and Perea, 2025 and 2026). Each had 50 children who could not yet read. Children who copied or traced letters by hand did better than children who typed. We could read only the summaries. The same team wrote both, months apart. We cannot tell whether some children were in both. So we do not count them as two separate checks. These children were typical learners too.

All of this is about learning letters and words. It is not about composing.

What brain studies measured

Some studies looked at the brain, not at learning.

James and Engelhardt (2012) scanned ten young children who could not yet read. The study compared printing letters with typing and tracing them. Brain activity while looking at letters went with printing. It did not go with typing or tracing. That is activity, not learning. The studies above measured learning letters. It tells us nothing about older children, composing or writing speed.

Ihara and colleagues (2021) measured brain signals in 33 adults in Japan. They compared words written by pen with typed words. The brain signals differed. But behavior was "not influenced by the writing tool," the authors write. A company that makes pen tablets paid for part of the study. Two of the authors worked for it.

The research we hold has no brain-structure evidence about handwriting.

Notes, essays and speed

Notes are a different question. One study looked at note-taking in college lectures (Peverly and colleagues, 2013). Handwriting speed was linked to the notes students took. These were adults, not children. We could read only its summary. It does not mention typing.

One US study had 241 children in grades 2, 4 and 6 (Berninger and colleagues, 2009). The children wrote by pen and by keyboard. At every grade, they wrote longer essays, faster, by pen. The authors tie that mostly to how much practice and teaching each way had had.

Typing has to be taught, like handwriting. Feng and colleagues (2019) found that children slow by hand tend to be slow at a keyboard too. That is a link, not a test of teaching. Their review also found writing quality fairly close in both ways. In the studies it pooled, typing was faster. In the Berninger study, essays were faster by pen. We could read only Feng's summary.

A keyboard takes away forming the letters. It does not take away spelling, composing or holding the sentence in mind.

Our typing page has more.

Is handwriting still taught?

One national US survey of primary-grade teachers came out in 2008 (Graham and colleagues, 2008). Most said they taught handwriting. We could read only its summary. We hold no national survey since then. Our page on dysgraphia myths has more.

What the research we hold does not settle

No study we hold tests whether a keyboard cuts into handwriting practice or handwriting growth.

We also hold no study of screen time or tablets and how handwriting grows.

So our view below is reasoned, not proven. We say so, and we hold it anyway.

Where we stand

Our position is this. Ask whether a support builds the skill, or replaces the expectation that it gets built. For a keyboard, the answer depends on the task. In a science test, typing lets the science show. In a handwriting lesson, it replaces the practice. We would keep building handwriting through the elementary years. Type where the point is the content.

In our view, it is both, not either. To us, the two only compete if someone makes them.

Handwriting improves most consistently with handwriting practice; motor work alone has not been shown to improve it.

When to ask for help

Each of these is a reason to ask for help on its own.

• Little change, even with steady practice and good teaching.
• Writing well below your child's other schoolwork.
• A teacher who raises a concern about writing.
• Extreme upset about writing.
• Complete avoidance of writing.
• Hopelessness about learning.
• Sadness or worry that lasts.
• Significant delays in speech, language or motor development.
• A skill that was there and has gone. Our position is that a lost skill goes to a doctor first, not a tutor.

If no skill has gone, start with the teacher. Say what you are seeing at home, and what you have tried. Beyond the teacher, the right person depends on what it turns out to be about. If the work is too hard, someone who works on that school skill. If worry or mood is the thing, someone who works with children's mental health. In our view, delays in speech, language or movement are worth raising with your child's doctor. In our view, if you are worried enough to ask, a professional evaluation is worth asking about.

Any talk of hurting themselves is a same-day call to your doctor or a crisis line.