Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Typing substantially improves writing? Common?

Okay, let's see if I can ask this question clearly. I went online to look at some of DS10's essay submissions for his online Algebra I course and I was surprisingly impressed. Surprising because I am so rarely impressed and also because I was only looking at the problems where he lost all or part of the credit. It turns out that he forgot to complete every part of the problem or he made a careless calculation error. Anyhow, I am not sure why he felt it was necessary, but in addition to showing the solution step by step, he verbalized the explanations for each step. It was very well-written and complied with punctuation, capitalization, spelling, etc.

His writing has always been above-grade level (straight A's in GT classes) and he can crank out an "A" level paragraph response to literary questions in no time (usually one of the first ones done) but he is sometimes prone to the occasional error in punctuation, capitalization, spelling, etc. Although he has always been good about showing his work and even verbalizing his work in math (required from 1st grade onward), they were never this elaborate and usually messy looking. He is not dysgraphic although he has very bad handwriting so I did not expect that typing would improve his writing so much.

Is this common? Is this kind of like how listening comprehension is normally a year to a few years ahead of reading comprehension?

This may be a matter of typing being faster therefore more closely keeping pace with a fast mind, so all the thoughts can flow out, rather than a few thoughts or words being lost due to slow scribing while the mind continues along with its thought path.

Meanwhile the spelling and grammar may be courtesy of a good word processor, with spell-check and grammar-check.

Thanks for your input. Interestingly, I was concerned with handwriting issues so had DS tested in the middle of the last school year. However, the test results came back with high handwriting speed, which also was a bit higher than his typing speed. Of course, his typing speed could have improved since then so there may be something to what you are suggesting. The funny thing is that I don't think spell check and grammar check are available in the essay test submission software plus he doesn't use spell check or grammar check in Word even though I have been trying to get him to do it.

I am personally much better at writing when I use a word processor.

I avoid using pen and paper.

I think the beauty of typing is that backspace and correct is so much easier than erasing and fitting a correction in the erased spot. So when you check over your work and want to fix a mistake it is so easy when word processing and more difficult when writing so might not be worth the effort when writing...thinking of a mistake where you want to change one word to a longer phrase or a longer phrase to one word or just inserting a missed word. And I think it is easier to actually see mistakes in the typed paragraph than in a hand written one.

Makes total sense to me ... I write for a living and simply do not think I could give nearly as good a product handwriting ... In the olden days people in my profession used to dictate (I am convinced no successful man ever actually physically wrote ever LOL). I dictated a bit when I first started but once I don't think anything really replaces how much better I do typing it myself on a computer... the cutting and pasting option is also a wonderful feature

It is word processing more than typing that does the trick, I think. I'm old enough to have done the whole 'quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog' type drills on a real typewriter with actual swinging bars that stuck together and let me tell you - it sucked. Being able to cut and paste instead of completely re-writing and shift things around is tremendously liberating.

DS would probably do so as well as he could get away with it!

Your explanation makes perfect sense. His handwriting is hard to read and I do know that he sometimes does not want to bother changing because it is too much trouble.

I think you are right. I know that I found it distracting to dictate punctuation and capitilization and not be able to glance at what came before while I was dictating.