No More Hunt and Peck Typing!
Touch Typing ? The Building Block for Success
I always took my high school typing class for granted throughout high school and college and especially as a teacher! I can type very quickly without looking at the keys which allowed me to research, type papers, write business reports, emails and blogs very efficiently. My typing ability is probably the reason I am not a big Ipad or texting fan. These methods of communication are just a lot slower for me because I have to hunt and peck type. Unfortunately, most schools today do not offer typing classes. Summer is coming up though and it is a great time to help your child learn typing, a skill, that will set them up for success in high school, college, and in their future careers.
Touch typing is typing without using the sense of sight to find the keys. A person possessing touch typing skills will know their location on the keyboard through muscle memory. It can improve any individual’s typing speed and accuracy dramatically.
Here are some FREE typing programs geared for elementary aged children
1 Big Brown Bear http://www.bigbrownbear.co.uk/keyboard/keys.swf
This game provides several exercises designed to improve kids touch-typing skills. These exercises start with using a few keys and gradually increases the level of difficulty till the learner reaches the total keyboard mastery. This game teaches learners to use the correct fingers for the different keys and improves their finger movements over the keyboard.
2. Key Seeker http://annrymer.com/keyseeker/index.html
This is a great tool that helps young learners recognize the letters on a keyboard and use the correct hand to stoke the key. This is a must have tool for kindergarten aged kids to help them learn two skills all in one game: letter recognition and keyboarding.
3. ?Type A Letter http://gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/typing/index.htm
This web tool helps kids learn to type fast using prompts from the screen. Kids are required to type the letters displayed in the screen as fast as possible so that they can achieve more letters at the end of the go. This tool also allows players to customize how they want to play this game. They can choose whether to type capital or lower case letter, select the font they like, determine the length of go and color of the letter.
4. Keyboard Climber http://www.tvokids.com/games/keyboardclimber
Keyboard Climber is a typing game in which kids help the monkey gets to the top fast by typing the letters that appear on the screen. Any wrong letter will result in the monkey falling down to the bottom.
5. ?Free Tying Game http://www.freetypinggame.net/play3.asp
This is a game that provides good typing practice to learners. Players have to save letters from being eaten by frogs. To do this, they need to type letters fast before the frogs swallow them.
6. ?Typing Ghost http://mathandreadinghelp.org/kids_games/the_typing_of_the_ghosts.html
In Typing Ghost, players are required to destroy the ghosts by typing the words on them. To cancel the typing, players need to use the ” backspace” key.
7. ?Key Man http://www.typingmaster.com/games/keyman.asp?keys=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz&Submit=Start+Game
Through typing letters on keyboard, players control the key man to eat all the food in the maze. When the food is over, players can eat the ghosts.
8. ?Keybr http://www.keybr.com/#!game
?Keybr is an excellent web tool that teaches you the art of touch typing. You are required to type in the letters shown on the screen without having to look on your keyboard.
9. Learn Typing http://www.learntyping.org/typinggames.htm
Finally a site geared for teens to learn to type and memorize the keys.