<p>Private school in the pre-high school years has done very little to teach typing skills (or keyboarding, maybe it’s called now). How did your child learn to type, or do you have any suggestions on how to learn?</p>
<p>Other parents at the school have said their kids used a typing program like Mavis Beacon. That worked somewhat for our oldest but he really didn’t have the interest or dedication for it. It is now time for child #2.</p>
<p>We used Mavis Beacon and other typing games we found online. My husband would annoy our kids by covering up their hands with a towel as they typed. My 13-year-old daughter just told me that she appreciates that now, because it really helped her.</p>
<p>Mavis Beacon or Type to Learn are great! Both my parents type quickly, so I have also adapted that. My school actually made us learn how to type in school, so everyone was prepared. It seems that in many schools technology is taking precedence, and now the schools are adapting their programs to teach kids how to use this technology. Typing is just one of the several key skills necessary to succeed in today’s world!</p>
<p>My children used typershark with the towels over the keyboard. They type really well and can look at me (not the keyboard) while typing at a fast clip.</p>
<p>When my son was 6 years old (11 years ago), we bought a program for him (actually us). We competed each other. I already knew how to type and I always won in the first few days, but my wife caught up in just a few days, after two weeks my son typed fastest and most accurate, somewhere like 400 words per minute, it was not bad for a 6 year old.</p>
<p>400 words per minute!!! That IS quite a feat. ;)</p>
<p>Nobody taught my daughter to type. I can’t remember any formal coursework for typing either in middle or high school as was the custom when my husband and I went to school (I remember everybody had to take typing, just…because.) D started self-teaching at around the middle of elementary school when the teachers began asking for typed reports in earnest. By middle and high school she was proficient enough on the keyboard that if you were to hear her tapping away today, you’d be hard-pressed to believe that she was using only two fingers instead of the usual 8-plus-thumb.</p>
<p>Do schools even teach typing anymore these days?</p>
<p>Schools DO teach typing these days 
Well, mine did, at least. They should teach typing…we need it in high school, so let’s start early. I was shocked to come to Peddie and meet people who didn’t know how to type–it’s pretty much a prerequisite at prep school to know how to type, because teachers expect typed reports and whatnot.</p>
<p>If your child’s school doesn’t teach typing, start early! It’s a great tool to have.</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses! What age do you think it makes most sense to teach typing? DC is currently almost 11. I’m of the mind that sooner is better…she is starting to correspond with friends via email. DH is more of the mind that it is too soon - to wait until typed reports and such begin - he reasons that a typing skill learned now and not used A LOT will just be forgotten.</p>
<p>My school taught my class in third or fourth grade using this website: [url=<a href=“http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/]BBC”>http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/]BBC</a> - Schools - Dance Mat Typing - Home<a href=“Dance%20Mat%20Typing”>/url</a>. It’s actually kind of fun! </p>
<p>It certainly helped because a majority of my classmates can type pretty fast now.</p>
<p>Absolutely! Start ASAP! The faster you learn, the quicker you’ll be able to type in the future. Right now I probably type about 90 WPM…not too many, but certainly enough to get things done quickly.</p>
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<p>I’m thinking she meant 400 characters a minute. :)</p>
<p>We used a Lion King typing program years ago featuring Pumba and Timon. It had games such as “whack a mole” etc. for typing proficiency (moles came out of holes that corresponded to the letters on the keyboard). And later a Spongebob program with similar games including one that included driving and the bugs splattered the windshield. The faster you typed accurately, the more the wipers cleaned the windshield or else the car crashed from lack of visibility. Only runs on older computers now and I’m so sad about that. I can type fast (put myself through school as a secretary) but I had fun playing the game with the kids. </p>
<p>I truly regret the advent of “texting” and what it is doing to kid’s perception of typing and spelling for that matter.</p>
<p>Okay - out of curiousity, I used this site (entered fake info for my identity - 60 year old man from Oklahoma) and got a score of 94.4 words/minute. [Free</a> Online Typing Test | Test Your Typing Speed | WPM](<a href=“http://www.rankmytyping.com/]Free”>http://www.rankmytyping.com/)</p>
<p>and 82 on this one which didn’t ask for info.
[MTWorld.com</a> - Medical Transcription, Work at Home Business, and Career Tips](<a href=“http://www.mtworld.com/keyboard/]MTWorld.com”>MTWorld.com - Medical Transcription, Work at Home Business, and Career Tips)</p>
<p>As with all internet sites, delete cookies when done. :)</p>
<p>My vote is Mavis Beacon, but I would think many programs are fine.</p>
<p>Anecdotally, I learned to type very well because of the incentive my junior high school typing teacher gave us. I was told that if I learned to type and was drafted into the Viet Nam War, I would spend part of my tour of duty at the base, as few GIs knew how to type well. It was sufficient incentive that I became (and still am) a very proficient typist.</p>
<p>You guys are terrific! She has played with Dancemat a bit so far, but looks at her hands and the keyboard constantly. Is this ok in the beginning when she doesn’t know the keys?</p>
<p>Would you recommend one of those keypad covers so she can’t peek at the keys?</p>
<p>Looking at the keys initially is fine. After a while it’s like dancing on stage after many rehearsals, her hands will develop muscle memory. It’s the word and letter repetition that is key as she builds proficiency during speed drills.</p>
<p>@OP: If just learning, why not try the Dvorak keyboard? Works way faster than the QWERTY layout.</p>
<p>Public school in our town took care of learning to type from about second grade through the time she left for private in middle school. They had typing every day in school and tests on both speed and accuracy.
That said, she is very fast on the keyboard but somehow even faster with just her thumbs on that stupid phone…</p>
<p>@alextwoofour - our DS uses the Dvorak keyboard, and he really does type super-fast. He learned it in a few weeks, and made the switch from QWERTY to Dvorak. I had never heard of it before he was introduced to it by one of his friends who does a lot of programming. He’s tried to convince me to give it a try, but the QWERTY layout is way too ingrained in my muscle memory.</p>
<p>It does drive me crazy though when I sit down at his laptop to type something, and it all comes out as gobbledygook! (He has a standard Mac laptop, with the standard QWERTY labels on the keys. He’s just memorized where each letter is using the Dvorak layout, and didn’t feel the need to relabel the keys.) Luckily, there’s a little icon in the tool bar that you can just toggle from Dvorak to QWERTY to switch it back and forth.</p>
<p>Might be worth looking into, especially for someone just learning to type anyway. (He assures me that both Windows and Macs have the Dvorak layout built-in as an option in the system preferences.)</p>
<p>My kids attend public schools and learned to type out their papers at school on the keyboards as young as the third grade and are all petty good. Now what they were not taught so well in public school is cursive handwriting. </p>
<p>Upon discussing this with my oldest child’s teacher she informed me there is just a small amount of time slotted for cursive handwriting as they are now told to focus on the state testing. So over the summer’s we had our own cursive handwriting classes at home.</p>