A great success story about learning to type from a girl with Dyspraxia and her Mum; Lucy achieved 20 wpm through her Easter holidays working very intensively, more practice in the summer hols got her to +30wpm and she now types at over 40wpm. Well done Lucy, Englishtype is proud of you!
Mum says “I think the key to our success was a very concerted effort at the beginning (almost treating it like a holiday course you might attend at a school) and covering the keyboard with stickers”.
“We ordered the program at the beginning of the Easter holidays two years ago (Lucy was in Year 6); prior to exams she had an Ed Psych report which diagnosed mild to moderate Dyspraxia and recommended she would benefit from learning to touch type if possible. I honestly didn’t think Lucy would manage to learn to touch type – but her handwriting and spelling were poor, so I was really keen to try. It was the fact that Englishtype is particularly designed to improve spelling as well as typing that appealed to me – and it does seem to have benefitted Lucy.
We bought Lucy a keyboard and covered all the keys with coloured stickers so she couldn’t look. I sat with her early on to make sure she looked at the screen and not at her hands. There was a small amount of bribery (£15 for reaching 15 wpm; £20 for 20 wpm).
Lucy worked almost every day through the Easter holidays (approx. 2 hours a day – sometimes more – she was very motivated by the games and the badges) and had reached, I recall, approx. 20 wpm by the end of the holidays – which I thought was amazing. Lucy had completed the whole course by the end of the summer holidays (following the Easter holidays when she started) and she had reached 30/35 wpm. She then began in Year 7 and uses a lap top in class some of the time and also types some of her homework. She doesn’t yet use a lap top for exams but this is likely to happen. However being able to type has made a really huge difference to her confidence. Her school promotes learning to type and has a typing course and she is always delighted to be top of the leader board. Over the past year or so she hasn’t used Englishtype because she has used the schools type program, but she has nagged me for some time to put Englishtype on her new computer because she says she prefers the games and wants to get Gold in everything.
I think the key to our success was a very concerted effort at the beginning (almost treating it like a holiday course you might attend at a school) and covering the keyboard with stickers. Lucy found the course something she enjoyed doing after she had got over the initial hump (which happened surprisingly quickly). I do recall she got a bit de-motivated when she thought she would never pass the TypeTest (this may be partly my fault for offering bribery!) but otherwise she has really enjoyed sitting down and tapping away and has gained a huge amount of satisfaction from it.
I have just started no.2 daughter on the course (she doesn’t have Dyspraxia) – I will let you know how she gets on. She has been at it quietly downstairs for an hour already – so, so far so good!
Anyway – I hope that it conveys just how much I feel Lucy has benefitted from the course. I have already recommended it very highly to a number of friends as I think it absolutely excellent.
