Question: Our private school is giving absolutely no instruction in keyboarding. Children are expected to pick up this vital skill during the summer by using one of the many keyboarding programs that are available online. My children in grades 3 and 4 made little progress last summer. How can I help them do better this summer? -- Learning to Keyboard
Answer: As we all know, today's children spend a lot of time on the computer. What we really want is for them to learn to keyboard before they develop their own hunt and peck system.
There are a great number of keyboarding programs that are free online. Many include games that can motivate children to learn to keyboard. Use a search engine to investigate these programs and choose one that offers a sound educational approach. Then, to ensure that your children learn to keyboard, set aside a certain time each day in which they concentrate on learning keyboarding skills.
How soon children need to become proficient at keyboarding depends greatly on their individual schools. When they are being required to write papers or reports on the computer, they need to have solid skills. At the same time they also need to learn such basic computer skills as using the mouse, formatting and making graphs, tables and charts.
You can get a general idea of the computer skills children need at each level in grades K-8 by visiting the website www.hw21summit.com. This list was developed in 2012 by educators and researchers at an Educational Summit in Handwriting in the 21st Century.