What is Touch Typing?

This is a skill which enables you to type quickly, without looking at the keyboard, and using all fingers.

I Can Type Quickly Already - Why Bother?

Some computer users can type very quickly just with two fingers - even up to 65 words per minute. However, even small improvements - though they may at first go backwards - eventually bring increased speed.

If you spend spend just half an hour each day typing, that is around 3½ hours per week, if it includes Sunday, 30 hours per month and 360 hours per year. If you increase your typing speed by 30%, you would produce 108 extra hours of work (or fun!) every year. That is a lot.

Fast-Fingers is a good way of testing your speed.

You May Feel Miserable

When you know the positions and can type with all your fingers without looking at the keyboard, even slowly, you need to persevere and must not return to typing with two fingers again. This is a quotation from a touch-typing website:

In the beginning you will feel miserable, but this is the only way to go. For example, with two fingers I was able to type 65 words per minute, and as of today with touch typing I am down to 30 words or so. It is a pain, but I am sure that within 2-4 weeks I will be back to 65 words per minute, and hopefully within some months I will be able to increase it to 100 words per minute, which is considered to be pretty fast.

If you are still typing with two fingers, make an effort to learn touch typing. I am sure it will be worth it.

The Caldicott target is 50 wpm for all year groups - though obviously the youngest boys may be hampered by the reading.

EnglishType

We use this program at Caldicott, free of charge while they are at school, and after nearly a year's use have found it excellent. It is recommended for use at home, though you have to buy the program - it is not available on the web, and comes on a CD - it cannot be downloaded. It will only work on a PC - no MAC version is available. We are keeping some copies at school, slightly cheaper than when ordered direct. There are two versions, Junior and Senior. If you only get one it should be the Junior version. Please email agp if you are interested. We make no profit from this, and it only saves about £7, so you may prefer to order direct.

This is their guidance for how to use the Junior program. (Caldicott bits in bold).

• Get your child practising every day or at least 5 days a week. Learning intensively is the quickest and most efficient way to learn to type. Get them practising as often as you can, every day or at least 5 days a week, ideally for an hour or more a day (can be in more than one session), but half an hour is better than none. Length of sessions will depend on your child’s concentration. It is an ideal holiday project, it is possible to learn in 6 weeks, we teach in one week! If you only do half an hour once a week, it can take a year or more to learn. Keeping a practice diary, timetable or schedule written down will really help – it’s easy to lose track of just how much work has really been done (or not done!).
• Cover the hands or make a special keyboard for learning. You will never learn to type by touch if you look at your hands while you are learning. Make a cover using a cereal or shoe box like this or use a light towel over your hands and the keyboard. Or, you can make yourself a blank or coloured keyboard by painting out the letters or putting stickers over them. Just no looking down!
• Stick Velcro on F and J keys (note that we do not do this at Caldicott, for obvious hygiene reasons). To help locate your fingers quickly and easily while you are learning, stick little pieces of Velcro to the F and J keys (or you can use blu-tac or something similar but Velcro is the best, use the soft fluffy side though!). You also do this on the Shift keys for lesson 12 at the end of the program
• Keep accuracy above 90% When you begin learning, accuracy is the most important thing. If your accuracy drops below 65% in a lesson, you will need to repeat it. You should always aim to keep it above 90%. Look at your key accuracy after each lesson, identify the keys that need improvement and pay particular attention to where they are on the keyboard.
  Your goal is 30 words per minute. Keep practising until you can regularly do 30 words per minute. By then, you will feel like a proper typist. If you are using a computer regularly, you will get faster naturally.
• Visualise fingers & letters away from the keyboard. When your child is away from the computer, get them to rehearse & visualise your fingers & the letter keys several times a day. Get to them say to themselves all the letters that each finger touches and keep practising until they are fluent. Repeating this exercise just before going to sleep will really help (not sure about this bit - I think they should relax before going to sleep, rather than being tested!). It often helps to have a trigger in your daily life that gets you to ask them to do the exercise, for example, every time you get a drink or stop at a red light when you are driving together.
• Don’t keep all your fingers stuck rigidly to the keyboard. Some keys are easier to reach by lifting more than one finger at a time. Always return your fingers to the home keys afterwards.
• After lesson 3, look for pairs of letters: A very important way to improve your speed is learning to type pairs of letters that often go together. Rather than moving one finger at a time, move both fingers together and hit the keys one after the other with no hesitation. It will really help your child if you explain this after Lesson 3. The easiest pair to learn first is E and R. These letters are often together in words and they are together on the keyboard. With your left hand, move your first and middle fingers up to the top row at the same time, press the keys and then move them back to Home. Other pairs to look out for are G and H (also together on the keyboard), TH (used a lot!), SH, CK, QU. They should start to find their own if they start looking! Learning pairs of letters together will help them to start to feel like a touch typist for the first time.
• A little extra incentive: Some extra motivation, or bribery, can go along way to speeding up the learning process too. If there is a treat your child wants and you can afford to offer it as incentive for reaching the 30wpm, the carrot will help!

To conclude, if you would like to order the program, please email agp.

There might also be a course in summer, taken by EnglishType staff. If you might like your son to attend for five days, please email agp. There will be a charge - I will let you know details if enough interest has been registered.