Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Advice for teaching keyboarding
The only useful class I remember taking in school was typing. I was 13 and I took the
class from Miss Web, long before the Web was anything more than what spiders
wove. Back then, typing meant taking something written somewhere else and then
typing it on your own paper complete with erase tape, that you used on mistakes, and
that bar that you hit to put the typing carriage back to where you started. Years later, I
was very excited about the electric typewriter, then selectric typewriter which was faster
with its typeball instead of those long long bars each with a letter hitting the page. I
haven’t typed someone else’s words in more than a decade. Today, that’s replaced with
a simple file download or cut and paste. Now the words I put on the page come from my
head to my fingers on a keyboard.
I’m often asked, what about today? When should kids learn to type?
As someone who learned to use an iTouch/iPhone from a three-year-old and an iPad
from a six-year old, I’m keenly aware that kids can start using technology well enough to
teach an innovation specialist very early. Teaching children to touch type is a great skill
to have early on that will save a tremendous amount of time later. Also, typing can be
fun! It’s like a race.
Perhaps the most important reason to get kids typing is it helps get to the thinking
faster. In academic terms this is called cognitive automaticity. With typing we are freed
from the slowness of handwriting, finally allowing us to get our ideas down at the speed
of thought. If you’re hung up on the lost art of handwriting, here’s some food for
thought. I haven’t written by hand in more than five years, except for my signature and
at the annoying doctors offices that are stuck in the past having me write the same
information 500 times over and over. If I was smart, I’d type it up on sticky labels and
paste it on the sheet.
When it comes to reproducing thoughts, keyboarding is a more efficient and effective
way to produce information that is easily sharable allowing the expression of ideas, not
the rendering of letters, to take center stage.
If you like hard facts, here’s what this looks like broken down by words per minute
with handwriting speed.
Grade
Handwriting Speed (Words Per Minute)
1-3
5-7
4-6
8 - 12
7-9
14 - 17
Source (Amundson, 1995)
With a one-semester typing program a student will usually be able to type about 30
words per minute and a second semester can as much as double the speed.
So, when should kids learn to type?
Why not now? It’s great for hand-eye coordination, letter recognition, and it’s an
effective way to share your thoughts and ideas in an authentic medium. Learning to
touch type not only saves time, but it enables one to type while maintaining eye
contact. Additionally, you’ll find that when you learn to touch type on the keyboard,
touch typing with your thumbs transfers naturally.
But what age is best to start?
A kid can learn to type as soon as they have access to a device with a keyboard though
it’s generally believed that they may not have the motor coordination or finger span to
truly touch type until about seven or 8 years of age. If you don’t have a device with a
keyboard, you can find a picture of one, print it out and they can still practice the basic
drills like these. Fold it up and bring it on the go. This can be an activity children can do
in the car, bus, subway, or waiting room.
What is a good age to start a child using a typing software program? There are several free and paid for typing programs. They suggest that they are
generally for children 7 and up. The nice thing about typing programs is that they
provide a fun learning environment for children. The paid for programs generally start at
around $20, with most hovering around the $30 range, and the highest end programs
coming in around $50. Here is a nice comparison of some popular kids typing
programs. Strangely, it is missing the one I’m most familiar with for children which is
Mavis Beacon for Kids which comes in at $19.95. My favorite speedbuilder game is TypeRacer and it’s FREE! What I love about
TypeRacer from a pedagogical perspective is that it provides literary passages for typing
which is a nice way to expose players to a variety of writing. The other thing that is
really neat is you have a little race car and you can invite friends to compete against you
virtually. The scores of you and your friends are posted making for a fun
competition. You can also race at anytime with others who happen to be using the
program when you are. In short children of any age can begin exploring keyboards, letters, and screens. It is an
essential 21st century skill and helping them master it early, not only provides a fun and
useful activity for children to work on, but it will also help them share thoughts and ideas
while saving a tremendous amount of time.
Posted by Lisa Nielsen
http://theinnovativeeducator.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-­‐should-­‐students-­‐start-­‐
learning-­‐to.html