Typing Practice For Kids

On Type Dojo you can go through each lesson, step-by-step. Learning just a few keys at a time. Repetition is a necessary part of learning how to type. But the short lessons keep kids from getting too bored. For these lessons I told my kids to do one lesson a day.

Each lesson is actually broken down into sections, my younger kids viewed 1 section as a lesson, older ones completed all sections. I let them interpret ‘lesson’ as they saw fit. A little a day is the important part and what is ‘a little’ to a 9-year-old is very different than what is ‘a little’ to a 14-year-old.

My 14-year-old has done typing practice before so she is just touching up on skills and working to get her speed up so that all those high school writing assignments she will have next year can be completed more easily.

Type Dojo helps kids get used to looking at the screen while they type, even before they have the keyboard memorized by putting a virtual keyboard right on the screen. They can even see which finger they need to use for each key as the program shows them the correct motion with animated finger movements.

The younger ones have done some typing, but they are still what I would call beginner typists. They are still getting familiar with the keyboard. This means it also takes less time for my older kids to complete a lesson than the younger ones.

I encourage you to let your kids work through typing lessons at the pace they need. Whether a short lesson each day means 5 minutes, or 20 minutes, don’t force them to type so much that they dread it. But also, don’t let them whine their way out of practicing at all. Every skill in life that you want to be good at needs to be practiced regularly, that is just life.

Another great way to practice the keystroke motions is with the KidzType Dance Mat typing activity.

Once children have completed lessons covering the home row of the keyboard, they are ready to play some games. Games help reinforce the movement patterns for each key with a more enjoyable activity. Most typing games give the student a limited amount of time to find the correct key, this speed helps push students away from the slow thought process of remembering where each key is individually located and into the automaticity of typing.

There are many typing games to choose from on the sister site to Type Dojo, Kidztype.com. Your child may have to try several games before they find one they like. My 10-year-old’s favorite typing game is Typing Jets. My 9-year-old says, “I hate playing typing games. I just want to do the lessons.” (I think he just needs to do more lessons before the games are easy enough for him to enjoy, but this could also just be a personal preference.) My 12-year-old enjoyed playing Cute Jumper and Apple Orchard while my 14-year-old preferred to play different games each day.

After kids become confident with typing individual letters, it is time to move onto the patterns of letters they will need to use most frequently, words. Fast typists do not stop to think about each individual letter they are typing. They think in words. And the long-term memory of both spelling patterns and motor-movement typing patterns does the rest.

You can incorporate word practice into your child’s typing lessons at any time by assigning a short typing test. You can choose the grade-level of the student, how long you want them to type (1 minute, 3 minutes, or 5 minutes) and then choose from a grade-level word list.

Note that the student can turn off the keyboard/finger animation at any point with a simple toggle switch. So once they are confident, they can narrow their focus to the words on the screen.

The lessons also progress to words, so even if you don’t do the typing tests your kids will start to type words as they progress through the lessons.

After students become confident with common word patterns, there are even bigger patterns to focus on; sentences, paragraphs, and stories. By the time your child goes through all the lessons and levels, they will be typing a story. Typing in complete sentences helps students practice skills like using the shift key to make capital letters and using punctuation marks.

Everything is more interesting with a story and I was delighted to find out that the advanced level of the Type Dojo program is written as a story.