MAN: How are you getting on with the assignment on handwriting?

男人：你手写作业做得怎么样了？

WOMAN: Not too bad. You know, I hadn't realised that children benefit in so many ways from learning to write.

女人：还不错。你知道吗，我之前没有意识到，孩子们从学习写字中获益如此之多。

It's such an important skill and yet most people think handwriting is less important than in the past because people hardly ever write by hand these days.

这是一项如此重要的技能，然而大多数人认为手写不如过去重要，因为如今人们几乎不再用手写字了。

MAN: Yes. And all the evidence suggests children should learn to write by hand before they learn to type. Not least because it helps their memory.

男人：是的。所有证据都表明，孩子们应该在学习打字之前先学习手写。尤其是因为这有助于他们的记忆力。

WOMAN: That's right. The physical act of writing helps children to remember letters.

女人：没错。书写这一身体行为有助于孩子们记住字母。

That seems pretty obvious when you think about it.

仔细想想，这似乎是相当明显的。

MAN: What's less obvious is how it helps develop their concentration.

男人：不那么明显的是它如何帮助培养他们的专注力。

They have to sit still and focus on one thing.

他们必须静静地坐着，专注于一件事。

WOMAN: Yeah. That aspect of handwriting had never occurred to me before.

女人：是的，我以前从未想过笔迹的这个方面。

MAN: Same here. I'm not sure I understand how it improves children's imagination though.

男人：这里也一样。不过，我不确定我是否理解它如何提高孩子们的想象力。

WOMAN: Well, there was that study which showed that primary aged children generated more ideas when they were writing by hand than using a keyboard. I would've guessed that would be the case.

女：嗯，有一项研究表明，初级儿童在手写时产生的想法比使用键盘时更多。我早就猜到会是这样。

MAN: Mmm, yeah. I'd never associated spatial awareness with handwriting either.

男人：嗯，是的。我也从未将空间意识与手写联系起来。

I thought spatial awareness was more to do with knowing where you are in relation to objects or other people.

我认为空间意识更多地与知道自己与物体或其他人的相对位置有关。

WOMAN: I thought that too. But good spatial awareness is essential for writing because you have to space words correctly.

女人：我也这么认为。但是，良好的空间意识对写作至关重要，因为你必须正确地给词语留出空间。

It's not just fine motor skills that improve through writing as I'd always assumed.

不仅仅是像我一直以为的那样，通过写作可以提高优秀的运动技能。

MAN: Handwriting is so much harder for children with dyspraxia, who have problems coordinating movement.

男人：对于有运动障碍的儿童来说，手写要困难得多，他们在协调运动方面存在问题。

It's good there are lots of things you can do in the classroom to help them.

好在你可以在课堂上做很多事情来帮助他们。

They need so much more support with letter formation – you need to play lots of games to help them distinguish letter shapes. It takes a lot of patience.

他们在字母形成方面需要更多的支持 —— 你需要玩很多游戏来帮助他们区分字母的形状。这需要很大的耐心。

WOMAN: Yeah. I liked the idea of using one of those pens that lights up if you press too hard.

女人：是的。我喜欢使用那种用力过猛就会发光的笔的想法。

That seems like a really simple solution.

这似乎是一个非常简单的解决方案。

MAN: Yes, absolutely. I'm not sure there's much you can do about children with dyspraxia writing very slowly.

男人：是的，绝对如此。我不确定对于写作障碍儿童写得很慢的问题，你能做些什么。

It's more important to focus on accuracy and as they get more confident I think they eventually speed up.

更重要的是关注准确性，随着他们变得越来越自信，我认为他们最终会加快速度。

WOMAN: One quite simple thing you can do is to use grid paper.

女人：有一件相当简单的事情你可以做，那就是使用方格纸。

So they write each letter in a box and that trains them to space the letters correctly.

所以他们把每个字母都写在一个方框里，这样就能训练他们正确地排列字母。

MAN: Indeed, that's more important for legibility than trying to get them to write in a straight line.

男人：确实，这对于提高可读性比试图让他们写直线更重要。