Colouring pages worth printing and putting on the wall

Fine motor skills measured at school entry proved one of the strongest predictors of later achievement in reading, mathematics and science. Together with attention and general knowledge they predict future scores better than early reading and maths scores do.

Across seven experiments, participants recalled words they had drawn roughly twice as well as words they had written down. The effect held when the researchers tested alternative explanations — depth of processing, visual imagery and picture superiority.

Children aged three to five spent three weeks learning capital letters: one group copied them by hand, the other typed them. Those who wrote by hand recognised the letters noticeably better, and the advantage persisted weeks after the training ended.

Comparing handwriting with typing showed that hand movement engages noticeably more brain regions and builds more complex connectivity between them. Typing does not activate the same network.