There are few skills that can increase your efficiency by about 300%; teaching kids to touch type is one of them. Give your child a huge head start in their educational and professional life and get them using a computer keyboard at maximum efficiency. There has been much criticism of the Latin proposal but the Government are still missing a simple, huge win by teaching touch typing to our kids. It’s quick and easy for kids to learn to touch type – it can be done in a matter of weeks.
Why spend 3 hours at a computer keyboard when you only need to spend 1? An average “hunt & peck” typist will be lucky to type at 20 words per minute, children will be much slower, most at around 5 words per minute – yes 5, that’s painfully slow! Touch typists work at +60wpm or as high as 90wpm, nearly 4 times as fast.
Children will be producing hundreds of thousands of words in written work over their school years and much, much more if they go to University or Further Education. This is thousands of hours over their time in education alone. And there are few jobs these days that don’t involve using a computer – most places have a computer system for sales or bookings, etc.
“Touch typing: Everyone needs it who works with keyboards. Hunching over a desk punching with two fingers is good for no one”. Rachel Moore, Eastern Daily Press 6/8/21; Rachel puts learning to touch type as essential as learning to drive, along with some other life skills like finance and online safety and etiquette. She’s one of many to comment including the BBC, TES, the Independent to name a few.
Typing by touch means typing faster and more accurately (you will never be fast if you are not accurate, mistakes take a long time to correct). It means a different part of your brain takes over the skill – like driving – it becomes unconscious and automatic, and your conscious brain can focus on what it wants to say. So it reduces the cognitive load freeing processing capacity and improves spelling too, words are movements and letter patterns not strings of letters. And it really helps children with all types of SEN; freedom from the pen is hugely liberating, life changing even, allowing them to finally show their full potential in written work.
Englishtype’s unique colour coding, literacy content and multisensory design maximises learning for everyone – all abilities in the classroom, supporting SEN learners too. Teach a skill that will really last a lifetime – teach touch typing for kids!
