Incorporate typing into educational strategies to alleviate handwriting-related cognitive load and support word retention for students with dyslexia¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (2 for, 3 mixed) · 2 studies (2 causal), q3 · 0 of 2 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article recommends incorporating typing into educational strategies for students with dyslexia, because the complex graphomotor demands of handwriting may hinder novel word acquisition. It states that "Incorporating typing into educational strategies could alleviate the cognitive load associated with handwriting and enhance word retention for these students." The recommendation rests on the study's finding that dyslexic readers learned spelling and nonword-image associations better through typing.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Learners must have access to typing as a writing modality during word-learning activities

Constraints¶

• The supporting evidence comes from a study of Italian middle school students with developmental dyslexia learning nonwords paired with images

Target Learners¶

• middle school students with developmental dyslexia

Target Learning Goals¶

• orthographic learning of novel written words
• semantic association of novel words with referents

Claims¶

• Readers with developmental dyslexia show better spelling and nonword-image association performance when novel words are learned through typing rather than handwriting [+W]
• Typically developing children benefit from both handwriting and typing when learning novel words [~W]
• Accuracy in retrieving orthographic and semantic information is not significantly affected by time spent handwriting or typing during learning [~W]
• Children with dyslexia are more impacted by the graphic complexity of words than both chronological-age and spelling-age matched controls [+W]
• Children with dyslexia show no global handwriting-quality deficit relative to chronological-age and spelling-age matched typically developing children [~W]

Related Strategies¶

• Do not combine unfamiliar graphomotor demands with orthographically complex words for students who have not mastered graphomotor skills

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Cerni, Tania; Lonciari, Isabella; Job, Remo. (2025). Learning by writing: The influence of handwriting and typing on novel word learning in typically developing readers and readers with dyslexia. LEARNING AND INSTRUCTION. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102119