The Educational
Typing Tutors

"Given the ubiquity of keyboards and the growing expectation that secondary school pupils and university students will type their essays and coursework. I think it is one of the most useful skills a child can learn - at any age from seven upwards. A self-teaching computer program I can recommend is Englishtype. It was developed by Jo Westwood an educational psychologist, and is structured around the national curriculum. A senior version is aimed at teenagers and adults. With concentrated practice, it should be possible to learn in a week a skill that may well last a lifetime."

by John Clare, The Daily Telegraph.

Touch typing program highly recommended by Schoolzone

Englishtype Junior

Englishtype Junior was developed by an experienced Educational Psychologist especially for UK schools. It has been used in the classroom and at home by thousands of children and with input from teachers all over the country.

Unlike other typing tutors, Englishtype Junior is designed to maximise additional educational benefits at the same time as teaching typing:

supports general literacy learning: improves reading, spelling, grammar and punctuation
follows Key Stages 1-3 of the National Curriculum, set the vocabulary level to KS1-3 for each pupil
uses all the words in the National Literacy Strategy
uses real words from Lesson 1, and does not use nonsense words or jibberish that can be very confusing, and even damaging, to literacy skills
NEW! Launched in September 2007, extra Spelling lessons
- high frequency non-phonic words, letter combinations, homophones & phonemes

Englishtype Junior Spelling Lesson Screenshot

click image to enlarge

Englishtype Junior is excellent in the classroom and for mixed ability groups; challenging the brightest children whilst providing extra help for Special Needs children. The inclusive design means all children can use the same program and work at the same time, but at their own pace (see Special Needs section for more details). It has a Special Needs friendly design, including:

Englishtype Junior Lesson Screen Background Colour Options

a multi-sensory approach
strong colour coding
visually simple & uncluttered presentation style
both spoken & written instructions
choice of background screen colours
highly structured content

Englishtype Junior: Unique Colour Coded Keyboard

Englishtype uses a unique colour coding system to build learning quickly and efficiently. Learning key & finger relationships as rapidly as possible is the main aim of any typing tutor. Supporting this link is an integral part of Englishtype's unique design.

For schools, Englishtype Junior has a detailed Teacher Administration package including a Class Management function, certificates, Teacher's Create Your Own Lessons and printing & exporting results (see Schools/Teachers section).

Englishtype teaches with a combination of short, motivating lessons and arcade-style games to encourage painless practice. There are 8 lessons (each with 3 or 4 sections) and 5 games. Individual key accuracy is displayed after each lesson to identify any problem areas.