Last month I had the pleasure of working on a committee of educators from my district to discuss the complex and often controversial issue of teaching our students to type. Over a two-day period we poured over current research and debated why, when, and how to teach keyboarding skills to elementary school students. Bringing a diverse range of perspectives and teaching experiences, these educators and I quickly reached consensus on the value of keyboarding, and agreed that preparing students for online assessments is just one part of the overall rationale.
Ultimately, we identified
Typing.com as a primary curriculum, and
Dance Mat Typing as a solid supplemental resource. We developed an implementation plan that can be adapted by all six of the elementary schools in our district, and are hopeful that a consistent, coherent approach to teaching keyboarding will benefit our students now and in the future. You can read
our entire report, along with the research consulted, here.
