Touch Typing In Schools

Choosing good touch typing software

A good typing tutor will teach key / finger relationships quickly and logically, have enough content to develop muscle memory without endless repetition, use relevant & useful vocabulary content – not strings of random letters & nonsense words and design features to boost skill transition into the unconscious plus a teacher package to monitor progress easily.

Vocabulary content is critical when programming muscle memory – the software must use words the children need to use and know how to spell. If you have time to look at the vocabulary used in most other typing tutors, it’s not been designed with literacy and education in mind. Whether teaching touch typing is a new venture or if you’re looking for new software and better results, Englishtype can help.

To get the best from teaching typing, we recommend that you set clear objectives – touch typing with muscle memory or better keyboard familiarity. Englishtype can be used to achieve either objective, but the benefits from typing with unconscious muscle memory are significantly different, and for SEN pupils, it will transform written work.

BBC Bitesize Dance Mat Touch Typing

Englishtype is a specialist touch typing company, teaching touch typing for 25+ years and expert in skill acquisition. Englishtype was created by an Educational Psychologist, educational designer of BBC Schools Dance Mat Typing. If, like lots of schools, you are using BBC / Dance Mat and are serious about teaching typing, it’s time to upgrade to Englishtype.

Teaching Children to Touch Type Across The Globe

The multi-sensory design and strong structure with carefully selected vocabulary content (sources include Alpha to Omega & National Curriculum Spelling Appendix) make Englishtype ideal for mixed ability groups in the classroom, challenging the brightest children whilst providing extra help for Special Needs children. It has been tested in classroom with thousands of children and developed & improved with input from teachers all over the world.

Englishtype supporting charity work in Indonesia

Learning To Type in School

Mainstream children, over their academic life, will produce hundreds of thousands of words in homework, coursework, essays, and dissertations. Touch typing is a tangible, easy to demonstrate, skill that increases employability. Professional careers like doctors, vets, solicitors and teachers must produce all kinds of written work very regularly. Keyboard skills are useful in almost all professions as records and customer information is computerised – builders, car mechanics, sales assistants – almost everyone uses a keyboard. Get your pupils to touch type and give them a skill for life and an advantage over peers. So many schools teach computer coding these days – but you can’t be a coder without being able to touch type!

Praise From Our Customers

“The thing I’ve learnt is the importance of not looking at the keyboard. Sadly, this rule I break at work. 10 minute consults with multiple health problems need writing up ASAP. I’ve got to the point where ... I need to take my eyes off that keyboard!! (Who types most in your practice?) The doctors type loads! Medico-legally, we need to type more than ever to keep everything documented. We also did away with a secretary years ago and type all our own letters, minutes for our meetings and also for supervision of our trainees. Loads!!! Our admin staff type far less. Lots of phone work and clicks. I train young doctors and see the ones who can touch type and what an advantage they have over us.”

“An intervention with pupils with Dyslexia & Autism or dual diagnosis (some receive funding, others do not). They all struggle to get their ideas down in writing. Their writing is not comparable to their cognitive abilities. Every single child loves it (Englishtype). They are happy to come every morning - a few come early. I was initially a bit worried re the children I'd chosen as they have such a wide range of needs. They all enjoy the program, and are all progressing through it at their own pace. They are all independent which is great. Four of the pupils receive a high level of support in class so it's lovely to see them being independent. One child needs prompts to stay focused, but this is improving as he unlocks levels and receives stickers etc.”

“We have been aiming for touch typing (ie. automaticity / muscle memory) with young people on our caseloads who, in addition to their visual reduction, have minimal underlying needs, eg. have poor fine-motor skills or conditions such as dyspraxia or those with low self-esteem. They work on the skill on a daily basis at school for 15 minutes... Our aim is for young people with vision impairment to be typing at 20 – 30 wpm with 95% accuracy by the end of Year 6. ...I have found English Type to be very effective in producing good typists.”

Touch typing for Special Needs pupils – life changing

Learning to touch type has many benefits for Special Needs individuals, and is invaluable, or even life changing. Access to a laptop and being able to touch type properly is transformative. Written work with a pen is usually a disliked and/or upsettingly difficult process. The quality of work is not comparable with cognitive ability, and self esteem is often also damaged. Learning to type also benefits reading, spelling, comprehension & vocabulary.

The single most important benefit comes from transferring the skill in the brain into the unconscious physical skill centre, or muscle memory. This is a very powerful part of the brain. Being able to type by touch means better accuracy, higher speed, improved spelling, less visual stress, less physical stress on the hands, and decreases cognitive load in the conscious brain – as the unconscious controls the “process”, the conscious is free to focus on content.

Englishtype’s design and careful structure help a wide variety of Special Needs, Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Fine Motor issues, Austistic Spectrum Disorder, Aspergers, Semantic Pragmatic & other language disorders, Slow Processsing issues and Visual Impairment. SENCOs, Specialist Support Teachers, Support Units, TAs, etc, around the country are achieving amazing results for their SEN pupils, transforming written work from a source of despair to one of pride.

Practicalities for teaching typing

Making coloured keyboards gives a big boost to learning and makes teaching easier – you can clearly see which fingers are moving where and if a little assistance is required. Keyboards can simply be kept at the side of the classroom & plugged in for typing practice, then return to a normal keyboard for regular work. A cover for the hands and keyboard will work if you don’t want to use coloured keyboards. Headphones are also essential and make for a lovely quiet classroom!

Englishtype has a detailed Teacher Administration program available. It allows teachers to monitor & control all pupils’ accounts from one computer. The Teacher Admin package can be used to monitor pupil’s progress (including Lessons completed, accuracy and speed achieved), print reports, group users into classes, print certificates plus trouble shooting and other admin functions.

Schools are working successfully with many different timetable options, from 15 minutes a week, up to Englishtype’s method of an intensive course. It’s important to set your objectives for learning and how much can be achieved in the time available – whether the aim is over weeks or a year or more. Special Needs children may often need a little longer to learn and should be offered and encouraged to take extra time. Englishtype’s short lessons fit easily into any timetable structure.

If you can fit daily practice, into your timetable, or several times a week, the children will make rapid progress and you will see results in a half or full term. If not possible, the simple rule of thumb is the more often, the better. Practising once a week does get results, but it needs to be over a year or even two to acquire the physical muscle memory.

Teaching touch typing can be part of the curriculum or an extra-curricular activity:

part of IT lessons
morning activity before main lessons
supplementary activity (e.g. with a T.A.)
breakfast, lunchtime or after school club
productive activity for children when groups are elsewhere, e.g. residential, booster classes, SEN time
post SATs or Common Entrance is a popular time to run a curriculum course
covering PPA time is also a common usage
many schools supplement learning time (and school income) by selling Home User copies to pupils (contact us for details)

Learning is self directed and children progress at their own pace, ideal in the classroom. Englishtype is very popular with the children, they enjoy learning. Many teachers are amazed at the silent classroom with all the children concentrating – the best lesson of the week! All instructions needed are in the program (both visual & verbal instructions) but occasional supervision is recommended, for example, are the children…

following the instructions? using the correct fingers?
playing games regularly to reinforce their learning?
maintaining accuracy levels? (Accuracy in the early stages is the MOST important element)
using the Key Accuracy feature to monitor it themselves?
progress on lessons, game scores, speed & accuracy can all be monitored by individual or class reports

Englishtype is made up of 12 lessons, with 3 compulsory sections A, B, C. The length of lessons is dependent upon which Vocabulary level is chosen, from 15 to 25 lines. A partial lesson save is also available in case the bell goes! Lessons are supplemented by Games and Booster (no onscreen keyboard to help so essential to test learning) – these other activities open gradually with progress through the main lesson levels.

Supplementing onscreen learning with keyboard related activities will boost conscious learning of the letter placement and/or colours & finger movements while giving the eyes and hands a rest. Use painted pebbles with letters to “build” a keyboard, use a blank keyboard template and fill in letters & colours (individual or team activity).

We recommend teaching early if possible. It’s easier to learn as a child, Primary age is ideal, before bad habits of hunting & pecking are too established. Children from Year 3 (or even 2) can learn to type, it’s a balance of motivation & concentration time; Years 4, 5 and 6 are a great age to learn to type.

In Secondary, Year 7 is a great time to learn – an intensive course pays huge dividends through the rest of the school years. Typing often becomes a focus when exams are looming (Years 10 & 11), especially for SEN pupils. Learning can be done intensively in 4-6 weeks but realistically it may take longer in school so planning may need to be a year in advance.

Englishtype online will run on most computers, on Microsoft Windows 7 or higher, Chrome and MacOS Catalina 10.15 or higher. It doesn’t generally run on iPad or Android. We recommend Edge, Chrome or Safari as the browser, ensure it’s the latest version. (if you use Firefox it must be V103 or later).

Your child can log into their account from any compatible device.

If you have any concerns about internet or broadband, or prefer your child not to be online, we have versions that will install and run on your own computer (don’t go online after the initial installation); contact us for details.

ONE-OFF COST NO ANNUAL FEE

WINDOWS only. Locally installed software on an internal network with Windows server & workstations, access on ONE school site only. Call for quote if you need multiple standalone licences

Ask about our special discount for parents – Home versions are available at a discounted price via the school.

Englishtype Junior

No Annual Fee

Single User / Home Licence £40.00

Network (10 Concurrent Users) £250.00

Network (20 Concurrent Users) £400.00

Site Licence £500.00

Includes 1 year of technical support

Englishtype Senior

No Annual Fee

Single User / Home Licence £40.00

Network (10 Concurrent Users) £300.00

Network (20 Concurrent Users) £450.00

Site Licence £650.00

Includes 1 year of technical support

Get Junior for half price when purchased with equivalent Senior!
(eg. buy Senior Network 10 and get Junior Network 10 for half price, so Joint Network 10 is £425, saving £125)

NB. These Licences do not cover commercial usage; if you wish to use Englishtype products for re-sale or commercial gain, please contact us.