Espoo first-graders learning keyboard skills before handwriting

Principal says "Handwriting can be learned later"

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By Katriina Pajari
     
      Punching the keyboard has usurped the role of traditional handwriting in the Meriusva School in the Espoo suburb of Kivenlahti.
      The pupils are first taught to write on a computer keyboard, and only then is a pen or pencil put in their hands. Computer practice starts in pre-school, and handwriting is taught in the 2nd grade.
      Meriusva School is an elementary school, with pupils in pre-school and the first and second grades of comprehensive school (ages 7 to 8).
     
"Handwriting is technically so difficult that it inhibits the children's expression. It is easier to write on the PC, and it is perfectly possible to learn how to write beautifully later on", says the school's principal, Hanna Sarakorpi.
      The strategy of using the computer as a learning aid has been developed by the Norwegian pedagogue Arne Trageton.
      "According to the findings of studies in Norway, the programme makes the pupils into better readers and writers", says Sarakorpi.
     
Trageton's programme of computer-assisted creative writing is in use in a few schools in the Greater Helsinki region. New teachers are being trained all the time, in order that the method can be applied more widely.
      The Meriusva School has received funding from the National Board of Education, geared to enhancing reading and writing skills in Espoo using the Trageton method.
      Dozens of teachers have reportedly been interested in the training.
     
Computer-assisted learning seems to suit particularly well to boys.
      Actions requiring precise hand-eye skills, for instance handwriting, are generally more problematic for them than for girls. This is in part because little boys do not as a rule draw or make things with their hands as much as girls of the same age.
      "Trageton enbales boys to write more words, and in so doing to learn more", says specialist teacher Nina Mansikka.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 28.1.2009

More on this subject:
 An 8-year-old can already write plenty

Links:
  National Board of Education
  Arne Trageton: Creative writing on computers, grades 1-4.
  Education in Espoo

KATRIINA PAJARI / Helsingin Sanomat
katriina.pajari@hs.fi