The roles of handwriting and keyboarding in writing: a meta-analytic review

Abstract

According to the simple view of writing (Berninger, Abbott, Abbott, Graham, & Richards, 2002), the two important components of transcription in writing are handwriting and keyboarding, the third one being spelling. The purpose of this paper is to review the contribution of two writing modes—handwriting and keyboarding to writing performance. In the first section, the contribution of handwriting fluency to writing performance was explored through moderator analyses. We found that handwriting fluency contributes to writing significantly and consistently, and significantly contributes to specific writing measures (e.g., writing quality, writing fluency, substantive quality). We then explored the relationship between handwriting and keyboarding, and compared their contributions to writing. Results indicated that performance on fluency of handwriting and keyboarding were significantly related, particularly on speed. Writing qualities under each mode were relatively competitive; however, keyboarding allows for faster writing. The findings from the two sections emphasized the importance of handwriting on writing development even though keyboarding is accessible.