Here in our district, every third grader has four weeks of keyboarding practice at the beginning of the year. We have a 30-45 minute session every day for the four weeks. Some of the teaching is from the ISTE keyboarding book, some is using the software Type to Learn. We use the orange SpeedSkins to completely cover the keyboard for every lesson. After the four weeks are over, we go to weekly lessons for 15 minutes at the beginning of every computer class until the students leave this school at the end of 5th grade.

There is an ongoing discussion whether to keep this way of teaching keyboarding alive for another year. Some of the comments and questions are:
Do the 4th and 5th graders touch type?
Is it worth the time out of the schedule? Other grades do not usually get a chance to start their computer classes until mid-October.
Another issue is the prep time for those teachers who rely on computer class time to have their break. Third grade teachers get extra preps for four weeks; other teachers get none for that day of the week.


I am on the fence for the idea to drop it entirely. I don't think I get great results and I have been doing this for 6 years. But, when else would they learn it? If I didn't do it this way, what other way would work even better?

I am looking for ways that others teach it with good results.
I am also looking for reasons why I should not bother anymore with teaching this unit because the kids today spend so much time on IM that they develop their own way to touch type.

Help, anyone?
Thanks!

Linda George
Computer Teacher
Portsmouth, NH
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Dear Mrs. George,
I think that the first four weeks of Type to Learn is worth it. I know you told me that only about two kids can type without looking at the keys but I think I know the reason why. People don't really want to do Type to Learn.

At first I thought that Type to Learn was a waste of my computer time but as I progressed I got better and LOOK AT ME NOW! I can type without looking at the keys. (Most of the time)

That's why I think that the first four weeks are important and Type to Learn is important. I always was jealous of how fast people older than me typed so I practiced, tried, and did my best so I could get to their level. I still need to practice but I love typing. It's an important thing in your life.

The first four weeks would show how important, hard, and fun typing is.

That is my opinion.
Sincerely,
David C.

My note: David, 5th grader, is one of the best typists I know so I asked him his opinion
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Another excellent typing student, Eddy (5th grader), has this to say:

Before 3rd grade I already knew how to type a little. Those four weeks made me type even better. The skins back then really helped, now they are kind of annoying. If we didn't do skins in 3rd grade most of us including me wouldn't be as good a typist today.

The fifteen minutes a day is to me just what we do. I have Type to Learn 3 at home and I usually do it once a week for about 15 minutes. I really enjoy Type to Learn, that's why I do it a little extra. And now when I am writing a thing on Word either for school or a story I am doing at home, it is much easier to type without looking at all the keys. I also after third grade never didn't not use home row again. Before third grade, I was all over the place. Now I only use home row. Whoever first use home row is a genius. It really works.

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Comment from a Twitterer: I teach "keyboarding in context." I'm always saying, "Please use two hands."
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I emailed the middle school computer teacher and asked him what he thought about the skills that the incoming students had and what he taught re: touch typing. His response:

There is a range of keyboarding skills among students. Some have good
basic skills with hand and finger placement and others don't. Some type
very quickly while others are very slow. It seems to me that many
students have had good training at elementary school and know what to
do, but some are disciplined about typing, others are lazy and slouch
down or lean back in their chair. Some practice good hand position
others don't. Some do a lot of instant messaging after school and some
don't use computers much for anything.

I use Type to Learn and many kids seem to like it. I use the first few
minutes of each sixth and seventh grade class for keyboarding practice.
It helps with focus and behavior if students have something to do every
day as soon as they arrive at class. That way we aren't waiting for late
students before getting started on something. Also, I have students for
12 weeks, but we only work on keyboarding for about the first half of
that time.

I am not particularly good at teaching keyboarding myself, but I think
TTL3 does a good job with visual cues that help most students improve.

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I work in a school for dyslexics in NY. Because word processing will help are students during the editing process, we start touch typing and word processing in the 5th grade. They are introduced in Writing class (3 periods of Language Arts) and then reinforced during other classes.

We have been using Ultra-Key for 10 years because it has less distractions and is easy to use. It also color codes the keyboard and allows the students to self assess their mistakes. After we introduce the students to the computer and keyboard, we move to blank color coded keyboards. The teacher then has his/her students create their own keyboard map by taking a blank paper keyboard and have the students fill them and color them the same colors as the keyboard. This way when they get stuck they can refer to their map. (It's all about the multisensory here!).

I try to explain to the students (and teachers) that by learning where the keys are, they can concentrate on their writing instead of their fingers. Students continue typing and word processing instruction throughout the year and are re-assessed at the end of the year and in September. By the end of 7th grade most students (95%) are 35 wpm or higher with 95% or higher accuracy, all without looking. For those who can not reach that speed and are getting extremely frustrated, we lower some of the speed goals and concentrate more on proper fingering and accuracy vs. speed. There will always be some who do not have the dexterity, motor skills or comfort level to go real fast so it's important for the teacher to realize when a student has reached that frustration point so they do not shut down.

I hope that helps.

Anne Marie Rowley
Windward School
White Plains, NY

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Thanks, Anne. It does help. All ideas, successful or not will help me when I meet with the tech team. The more knowledge I have the more the better off the kids will be!
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This is my 3rd year as a technology teacher in a middle school. When I arrived here, my curriculum was a combination of web development, video production and desktop publishing. I found it extremely difficult to teach students these advanced technology topics when they lacked the basics; technical vocabulary, computer literacy and keyboarding. After some convincing and lots of complaining, I received approval to purchase a Middle School keyboarding curriculum (we use Prentice Hall) and they made keyboarding a required course for all incoming 6th graders. It is a trimester course, where I emphasize basic keyboarding, technical vocabulary, and basic internet safety. My goal is for the kids to be able to fill in a completely blank keyboard by the end of the trimester. Most do it very successfully.

I have to admit, the class is a lot less fun to teach than the topics we had in my 1st year in the district, but this is what the kids NEED. It is hard to effectively type a paper when you spend a lot of time looking for the keys, or when you don't know how to save a document to a jump drive, or add a printer to your computer.

I was disappointed that my students didn't have that basic computer literacy. I firmly believe that they should come from the elementary schools with those skills. I often wonder why we spend so much time teaching students how to write in cursive and almost no time learning keyboarding skills and computer literacy.

Erica Roberts
Technology Teacher
Westmont Junior High School
Westmont Illinois
http://www.iteachyoucomputers.com
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Hmmm....that is very interesting. Thank you for that post. I hear you on the boring aspect of teaching it, but it seems to be worth the effort. I am glad to hear that.
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I have been teaching touch typing for over 15 years. I've tried many different methods. I think it is still a valuable skill. True there are many people who type fast with a couple of fingers, but I feel it is one of the most important skills I learned when I was in school.

At my school I take the students for keyboarding in both third and fourth grades. Students come from the beginning of the school year until Thanksgiving break. They come 3x a week for 20 minutes a session. I find that while initially it's nice to have a slightly longer piece of time, once they learn the program and the expectations, 20 minutes is a nice block of time. In third grade students use a program called Paws in Typing Town and in fourth grade they use Type to Learn 3. There is the expectation that once students can touch type reasonably well, they will apply this skill in their different subject areas.

I don't have any statistics but from observation I'd say roughly 50% of students will learn to type very well and continue to use the skill throughout there time at Cathedral and beyond. I've often had students come back and thank me for teaching them to type. There will be another 40% that will do pretty well. And then there will be a few who are resistant and just not gain the skill. Some of them will be more ready to learn at a later time, but some struggle and hunt and peck.

Ellen Baru
Director of Technology
Cathedral School
New York, NY
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Thank you for those excellent, thoughtful comments. I feel so much better about teaching keyboarding. I feel like i have good information now how to teach it, as well.
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Dr. Leigh Zeitz has a blog entitled http://keyboarding.wordpress.com/. I emailed him after I found his blog and shared my questions and this wiki with him. He posted my email to his blog and responded there.

Repost:


Why should YOU teach keyboarding? This is the most important question that you and your curriculum designers can ask when you are making decisions about your keyboarding teaching strategies.
I just received an email from Linda George who teaches in a school district in New Hampshire. Their district is in the midst of considering a change in their keyboarding curriculum. They have been using Type to Learn 3 to teach keyboarding in 3rd grade everyday for 4 weeks. They are considering extend this 20-day, 4-week instruction unit to a 20-week, once-a-week process. In an effort to discuss and consider this dilemma, Mrs. George created a wiki for discussion, How Do YOU Teach Touch Typing? This wiki contains some interesting responses from teachers and students. You should go there and place your own response.
Here’s my point of view on this question:
Why should we teach keyboarding? We teach keyboarding to build students’ skills in using computers. We teach them skills so that they will be more efficient when they write papers, emails and even blogs.
The biggest contradiction that we have in our schools is that we teach our students how to keyboard but expect them to write use pencils and paper in their classrooms. I understand that it’s costly to provide computers or portable keyboards for students to use in class, but it would make learning much more efficient and give more purpose to teaching keyboarding. I have already written about this in another posting on this blog.
What about teaching keyboarding once a week instead of 4 straight weeks? It’s a waste of time. Remember that keyboarding is a psycho-motor athletic ability. How much would you learn about playing baseball if you only played it for 40 minutes once a week. Verrrrry Little.
If you played baseball 40 minutes a day for 4 weeks, you could develop a foundation of playing skills that you could use for the rest of the season. As you play for the rest of the season, you will be able to further refine your abilities. Taking 20 weeks to learn how to keyboard is an experiment in futility. Does this mean that students will only be able to write papers that use the homerow keys for the first month? It is a situation where educators can say that students are being taught to keyboard but taking 5 months to learn to keyboard wastes most of the school year.
I think that we often forget why we are teaching keyboarding. It is a living skill that our students need to learn in 3rd grade so that they will be able to work effectively and efficiently.
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I am still taking comments! Thanks for looking in...

Linda,

I appreciate your situation. I run the KeyboardingResearch.org blog where I try to inform the work of the research, strategies, and products for teaching keyboarding. After reading of the decision that Linda George and her colleagues are trying to make, I posted my opinon on my blog but thought that I ought to share it here as well:

"Why do we teach keyboarding?
We teach keyboarding to build students’ skills in using computers. We teach them skills so that they will be more efficient when they write papers, emails and even blogs. The biggest contradiction that we have in our schools is that we teach our students how to keyboard but expect them to write use pencils and paper in their classrooms. I understand that it’s costly to provide computers or portable keyboards for students to use in class, but it would make learning much more efficient and give more purpose to teaching keyboarding. I have already written about this in another posting on my blog.
What about teaching keyboarding once a week instead of 4 straight weeks? It’s a waste of time. Remember that keyboarding is a psycho-motor athletic ability. How much would you learn about playing baseball if you only played it for 40 minutes once a week.
Verrrrry Little.
If you played baseball 40 minutes a day for 4 weeks, you could develop a foundation of playing skills that you could use for the rest of the season. As you play for the rest of the season, you will be able to further refine your abilities. Taking 20 weeks to learn how to keyboard is an experiment in futility. Does this mean that students will only be able to write papers that use the homerow keys for the first month? It is a situation where educators can say that students are being taught to keyboard but taking 5 months to learn to keyboard wastes most of the school year.
I think that we often forget why we are teaching keyboarding. It is a living skill that our students need to learn in 3rd grade so that they will be able to work effectively and efficiently."
Hope this is useful for the conversation.

Leigh Zeitz
http://drzreflects.com
University of Northern Iowa




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I teach keyboarding at a middle school for 5th - 8th grade. I have only taught 7th and 8th grade the keyboard so far. I have found that there can be extremes, but most students who come out of my class can type on average 50-60 words per minute. It has always be a semester course, which is 18-20 weeks. Students learn the alphabetic keys, number keys, symbols, numeric keypad, and various other functions of Microsoft Word. They are required to use keyboarding skins to cover the keyboard. I use a textbook and introduce 4-6 new keys a week. A typing program is used for supplemental purposes only.

For the first time this year my admininistration approved my request to teach 5th and 6th grade keyboarding for one quarter (8-9 weeks). I have started off the year with 5th grade and it has definitely been a learning experience. I feel like I need every bit of the 8-9 weeks to teach them just the alphabetic keys, punctuation, shift, caps lock, tab, and backspace. They are just slower paced than the older kids and need more time on new keys. Right now I'm expecting my students to reach a level of at least 20 words per minute by the end of the quarter. That has always been my requirement, but now i'm wondering if I shouldn't lower it for 5th grade. Although, in one bit of research that I saw it said that about 20 words a minute is recommended because it is at that rate that students' typing skill becomes automatic. I would tend to agree with that. Any input anyone has on this subject would be greatly appreciated.

As for teaching keyboarding, I believe that a teacher becomes more of a guide and a monitor when teaching. Technique is always emphasized first and foremost. This must always be monitored. A teacher must be walking constantly behind the students to provide them feedback on what they are doing wrong or right. In my opinion it is not a subject that would allow a teacher to sit behind his/her desk while students are typing as so many people believe. Most students need you standing behind them so that they will do it correctly because they know your there and they know your watching and they know your grading them. There are always exceptions. There are students that have enough discipline and drive to do it perfectly on their own and there are students that can type a very good amount of speed without hitting everything with the proper finger. There are also students who won't do it correctly no matter what. I think the majority of students fall in the middle and they need the guidance and the instruction and the knowledge that someone is there holding them accountable through his/her grade. I think keyboarding has to be a taught a minimum of 30 minutes a day 5 days a week. I really would recommend a full class hour 5 days a week.

I always compare keyboarding to sports or band or even hunting. The more a person practices the better he or she will be. It is very repetitive and a lot do not find it very interesting. However, we think nothing of shuffling our kids every day to practice or to play a sport that for most won't benefit them past high school as far as a job is concerned, yet we question teaching them a computer skill that will last a lifetime and may increase their chances of getting a job in the future. Sports and extracurricular activities certainly have their place. I just wish it wouldn't always outrank academics (At least where I'm from it seems to)

Thank you for listening and I appreciate any input you have. I enjoyed reading all the thoughts on the subject.

Kristi Thurman
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Hi Kristi,

Thanks so much for your input! I agree with what you are saying about technique, standing behind them while practicing, etc. The only point that I think might be hard to convince others is the one hour practice. There just does not seem to be the time in the school day to have five hours a week devoted to teaching keyboarding. I think that if they come to the lab every day for a good half hour and really work, plus practice at home at night, that it will suffice. I personally like the four consecutive weeks, too.

I do not have goals, per se. We use Type to Learn and it keeps track of where the kids are. Due to so many abilities, I just keep them going on it for 15 minutes every week until they leave here at the end of 5th grade. I think that sometimes the 6th grade teacher will use it for reinforcement, also.

I use the orange skins also. I see them peeking once in a while and I say Don't! They are pretty good about it.

Good luck in your quest to teach touch typing!

Linda George