Writing by Hand or Digitally in First Grade: Effects on Learning to Compose Text

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The study compares the development of writing composition skills in Norwegian first-grade children learning to write via handwriting versus digital typing with text-to-speech (TTS) support. Five handwriting-based classes and five digital writing-based classes participated. Results reveal:

• Key Findings: Improvement in text length, syntactic complexity, and narrative sophistication were consistent across both groups. However, handwriting showed advantages in spelling and spacing accuracy.
• Conclusion: Neither handwriting nor digital typing was inherently superior for early text composition skills over the first year of instruction.

For more information, access the article on ScienceDirect.