The act of writing forms very strong neurological connections and associations. As an example, when you sign your name to a loan contract it has significant meaning and commitment. Hence, why the written technique was used by the school similar to tactics used on prisoners of war. Read Robert Cialdini’s book Influence for more information.
“The act of writing forms very strong neurological connections and associations.”
No kidding. When I taught composition, I would have students copy in cursive various authors to aid in understanding the style and competencies of that author.
Recently, the Cleveland Browns had their players keep an old fashioned note book in long hand rather than solely rely on their electronic notebooks and in turn saw the players remembering the plays and having a better understanding of the concept of what their coaches were trying to do.
I am home schooling an 11 year old who used to have trouble with word problems. Even something relatively easy, such as find the perimeter of a board, she struggled with. She would ask to do quadratics or cube binomials instead of doing a word problem. I had her write out how to do a simple math problem in long hand in sentence form and eventually progressed to having her write in sentence form how to do more complex problems. Her word problem abilities improved. This is because the portions of our brain that deal with numbers and that which deals with letters are separate and we need to work to make those connections.