Has anybody considered sending their kids to learn touch typing .. DS is 6 but

[TwigorTreat]

I think it could be rather useful

are there any courses a 6 year old could take? How did your kids learn to touch type?

i think that is a brilliant idea...brilliant!
cant help im afraid...but as a two finger klutz type typer i wish i had learned as a yoof

Mavis Beacon for Kids is really good. We also have a Sponge Bod disc for teaching typing.

I agree - it's a good skill for anyone, young or old.

It would be extemely useful but where are you thinking of sending them?

Do it at home, for free, BBC dance mat typing is good.

I learned when I was eighteen, and I have a typing speed of 100 wpm.

The basic teaching technique is very simple.
You place your fingers on the middle set of letters.

Your left fingers (not the thumb) from A to F, and your right fingers from L to H.

From there, you place your fingers on all the other letters. But you mustn't look at the keyboard. So you can have any type of computer screen, which shows you where to place your fingers.

For an adult, it takes a couple of months to be fully trained. A child would probably need less time to memorize, but obviously their spelling is not great, so it's swings and roundabouts.

It is also very obsessive for a while. When you learn to touch type, you find yourself tapping out the letters whenever anyone speaks to you!!

I think six is a little bit young, for reasons of concentration and spelling. But it's certainly worth thinking about, and messing about with for a couple of years.

Mine do it at school in key stage 2, which i think is a great idea. I'm sure if you look there will be some good cds etc that you could do at home.

Agree that a CD-Rom is probably the way to go, but it might be worth seeing if there's anything called Futurekids in your area- it's some kind of franchise. Ds did several "camps" there over the years, one of which was Tough Typing (in name at least- not sure how much good it did).

TBH twig, all my kids can type pretty fast - just because they use the computer so much. Yours will be the same. DD is 8 and a whizz

What is the use of touch typing unless you want to copy something?

Which your dd will clearly not want to do - she will be making it al up herself

Why not touch typing, Beetroot? It's pretty easy to learn - I taught myself when I was 21, with the help of a library book (this was during the stone age).

It just takes a bit of discipline for a few weeks, and then the paybacks are enormous.

hijack...

beetroot ..it WAS you?? who lent me books...to read with my son...AGES ago...[slight cringe]

i wWILL will will send them to you soon.

i must have your email still...

''its in the post!''

x

touch ty[ing makes people much quicker and most children I see in schools are really pretty slow. dh did a touch typing course and he is much quicker than me.

This is the program we use at the junior school I work at - it's available for home use for £20 - there's a link on the right. It uses colour coding to help children work out which fingers to use & we've seen a great improvement in typing since the children started to use it.

Because touch typing vastly increases your typing speed. It was designed that way.

way off topic but...

every time I see your thread title I misread it as "Has anybody considered selling their kids to learn touch typing...DS is 6 but"

and always think 'wow, that's extreme - she must be desperate to learn to type quickly'.

Sorry for the hijack. I'll scuttle on back to Planet PrincessAfterLife now.

Dance Mat Typing on the BBC site is great for learning to touch-type. My dc love it.

I learnt when I was 14, have a fab typing speed, it was 100 when I started my professional career when I had finnished my degrees.

It can be great fun for adults too:
My Sad Descent into the funs of Touchtyping

I need my ds2 (9) to learn, as he cannot write...
We were just talking about it this morning, how timely!

i had a typing teacher at school
he put stickers over the keys and we learnt that way
we had to wear massive earphones and a foot pedal for the cassette

and a manual typewriter (!)

I think I was 14, I might have been younger, it was my first year of secondary school. 2 hours per week for 2 terms.

In hindsight, it was the most useful subject I could have chosen, it was voluntary.

When I started computing the following year I had a headstart as I could already touchtype.

LOL, Nailpolish, I too learnt on an oldfashioned manual type writer!

Touch typing is so useful. You don't have to be watching your fingers and the keyboard but can instead keep an eye on the screen so can spot when you have misspelt something or accidently left caps lock as soon as you do it, instead of eventually looking up to realise your mistake. I dropped Spanish AS level whilst I was at college in order to do touch typing (many years ago). Out of all my qualifications the one I use day in day for both work and home is touch typing. If you can find a fun way for your 6 year old to learn it I think they will find it really useful.

it is not that useful surely?

theses days kids can type with two gingers pretty fast.

Why to they need to be any faster?

i touch type _ well I can but I don't iykwim - and hte kids are jsut as fast as me

Beans - I was wondering who it was

google senselang
oinline and free

They'd be faster and more accurate by touch typing. It's not that hard to learn. It can be mastered in a few lessons.

Oh, lordy me! Yes, I also learned on a manual typewriter. It was hell on your little finger. It just plunged into oblivion!