The Learning Success Blog

25 university students who had Fast ForWord123 training for 11 weeks boosted their writing skills 25%.

This compares with a control group of 28 students at the same university who did not receive the training, and who showed no improvement over the same 11 week period.

Because no explicit practice with writing is included in the training program, the results of this study demonstrate that training in basic cognitive, listening, and reading skills generalise to improved writing ability.

The writing skills of the Fast ForWord 123 group were measured before and after training. The measurement tool was the OWLS Written Expression Scale. This is an internationally recognised standardised assessment which showed the 25 students improved their writing skills from below the control group students to above them after the training.

Never start a sentence with 'and'.    

Really?

Imagine if you could easily improve your writing, or your students' writing, by ignoring some old rules such as the one above. And by using some writing principles from neuroscience.

A new book, The Reader’s Brain: How Neuroscience Can Make You a Better Writer  contains 6 science - based guidelines you can use. It also includes some old rules that don't help at all.

The author is a university professor who wanted to give her students a way to improve their writing with insights from neuroscience data, such as eye-tracking, EEG brain scans, and fMRI neuroimaging.

Children today are doing much less handwriting than children did 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Before computers became commonplace, handwriting was much more important for everyone. Back then schools put considerable time and attention on making sure students developed their handwriting. 

I recall entering cursive handwriting competitions when I was a young child (I went to primary school in the 1950s), and the sense of pride for the kids who were judged the neatest writers.

Now, typing on computers and tablets is replacing the act of writing by hand for many students (and adults).

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