Keyboarding is an essential skill that should be developed from a child’s earliest use of a keyboard. Taking the time and making the effort to learn to type properly, while a slow process at first, can enable a student to type much more quickly than he or she could ever write by hand. Think of all the time this could save your child over the course of his or her high school and college years, and in his or her chosen profession, which will almost certainly involve some degree of computer use.
We are in the process of re-evaluating and remodeling our Keyboarding instruction, and as part of this, I would like to encourage you to support your child’s developing keyboarding skills in his or her home computer use. Below this article, this page contains links to many free online keyboarding games, lessons, and drills. The most basic are games for young children that simply encourage them to find the letter on the keyboard. Other activities range from the traditional asdf jkl; drills to word games, to full typing tests that report speed and accuracy.
Practicing these activities is valuable for all children, but there’s a catch. Practicing typing the “wrong” way -- i.e. “hunting and pecking” with one or two fingers, hands jumping around the keyboard -- will only reinforce those habits, and is a waste of time. These activities should be practiced at home only if hands will be in the right position. Even the youngest children should be encouraged to follow certain rules when using a keyboard, and older children should be required to keep their hands on homerow and use the proper fingers on the proper keys, every time they use the keyboard. Here are some guidelines as to what can be expected of children at different ages:
- Young children up through Kindergarten: Encourage your child to use both hands on the keyboard, keeping the left hand on the left side, and the right hand on the right side, when possible. In their earliest uses of the keyboard, young children will be focused on simply finding the letter, and will probably tend to use their dominant hand. Do not teach the CAPS LOCK key for single capital letters; children should learn how to use the SHIFT keys. It is great for young children to practice typing their name, or words they know, on the keyboard, in order to build their familiarity with the location of letters, and to reassure them that yes, all the letters are indeed there! Young children may have some confusion over the fact that the I key looks like a lowercase L, and that even though all keys show capital letters, you will actually get a lowercase letter when you press that key without the SHIFT key.
- First & second grades: Continue to use two hands on the keyboard, keeping both hands on their respective sides of the keyboard. Only pinky fingers should touch the SHIFT keys, and only thumbs should touch the SPACE bar. Only one space should ever be typed between words or after punctuation marks.
- Third & fourth grades: Children should have eight fingers touching eight homerow keys at all times, always feeling for the bumps on F and J with their pointer fingers. They should be able to get their hands properly on homerow just by feel. They may not yet have memorized which fingers to use on which non-homerow keys, and that’s OK, but hands on homerow is an important first step. It is OK for them to look at the keyboard when they need to. Students must learn that it takes two hands to properly capitalize a letter, typing the letter with its proper finger, and shifting with the pinky of the other hand. Children’s hands are not yet fully grown, so it may be hard to stretch to certain keys. This will, of course, get easier over time as they get used to it, and as their hands grow.
- Fifth grade & up: By now students are in their third year of formal Keyboarding instruction, and should be able not only to keep hands on homerow, but to use the proper fingers on all keys, always properly shifting with the opposite pinky to capitalize a letter. Ideally, students should not have to look at the keyboard.
Only by taking the time, every time, to use proper form, can improper keyboarding habits be broken. Then proper keyboarding can become more and more natural, easier, and ultimately, faster, which is, of course, the goal. Emphasis should always be put on form and accuracy over speed. In Keyboarding class, I emphasize a goal of 90% accuracy, but the computer doesn’t know whether a typist is using the right fingers on the right keys! During Keyboarding class, I monitor students’ work to be sure hands are on homerow and proper fingers are touching the keys. Your child will benefit the most from practicing these activities if you are in the same room, available to peek occasionally at his or her hands, in order to ensure they’re in the right place.
The promise I always make to third graders starting formal keyboarding instruction with me is that if they take the time now to go slow, be careful, and do it right, then over time it will get easier and as a result, they’ll be able to type faster than they ever could by “hunting and pecking.” Overwhelmingly, three months later at the end of their third grade year, those students agree with me that it does get it easier and feel more natural!