Academic study concludes that teaching kids to touch-type can make them better writers

Improving students’ handwriting skill did improve their writing ability, but improving their typing skills improved their writing even more. From 1999, so not exactly news, but interesting info in light of the pro-handwriting links that have been making the rounds on the Intertubes.

There was a significant relationship between orthographic-motor integration — handwriting and the length and quality of handwritten text, and a stronger relationship between orthographic-motor integration — typing and length and quality of computer-based text. Both intervention groups in the second study showed significant differences in writing skills from pre- to post-test. However, the typing skills group showed significantly better scores on typing and quality of typewritten text than the journal group at post-test. The impact of the intervention was specific to typewritten text. There was no difference in length or quality of handwritten text. —Relationship between orthographic-motor in… [Br J Educ Psychol. 2004].