Type to learn 4 sunburst12/19/2023 ![]() ![]() "The recommendation is that, because keyboarding is a psychomotor skill, and they need short and frequent practice to get that hand-eye coordination, the optimum is a class of 20-30 minutes every day for 6-9 weeks," says Mary Ellen Mehler, business and marketing education supervisor of Arlington County Schools. But we don't teach it formally."Īrlington public schools last year implemented keyboarding instruction for third-graders. ![]() We encourage using two hands on the appropriate sides of the keyboard, knowing where the home row is, using the space key and so forth. "As we put in technology at the elementary level, we emphasize proper posture and hand placement. "It takes about 20 lessons to make a 20-word-per-minute person," says Gallagher. Fairfax schools currently offer elective classes in keyboarding to seventh- and eighth-graders elementary students can learn keyboarding only in after-school classes through adult and community education programs. Nor are most teachers trained to teach keyboarding. The problem in teaching keyboarding that goes beyond a general understanding of touch-typing, says Gallagher, is that not all the schools have the necessary equipment to devote to lessons. "In the past, the state's recommendation for keyboarding has said students should be able to keyboard as fast as they handwrite," says Francine Gallagher, Fairfax County Schools coordinator for elementary- and middle-school technology programs. While the first statewide test of keyboarding skills is scheduled for fifth-graders during the spring of 1998, what the test will cover isn't yet clear. In Virginia, the state's "standards of learning" now call for students to know basic keyboarding by the fifth grade. Montgomery County, for instance, has no formal curriculum for keyboarding at the elementary-school level, but many schools have keyboarding software available. "It wasn't as important before, but this is something on the horizon for all children." Yet many schools and school districts have not yet addressed the growing need of formally teaching elementary-school students this most basic of computer skills. Last spring, The Children's Partnership listed among its 10 Steps to Success for Every Child "the education and informational skills necessary to function in the workplace and community of the 21st Century." Keyboarding falls into that category, says Lipper. "Keyboarding has become part of a set of new basics for learning that schools and parents need to teach children to help them reap the benefits of the technological society," says Laurie Lipper, co-director of The Children's Partnership, a nonprofit policy and strategy group. A Microsoft/IntelliQuest survey found recently that 89 percent of parents believe computer skills are important to educational success 86 percent of children believe computer skills are important to getting good grades. Just as computers already are a fact of life for children as young as kindergartners, so is keyboarding - today's techspeak euphemism for typing.īy the middle years of elementary school, many students are encouraged, even expected, to use computers on projects such as daily journals and research papers. The child loses his train of thought trying to find the right key. Young fingers hesitate as they sight-search the scrambled alphabet for one letter at a time. Ever watch a typical fourth-grader type a school report on the home computer? It can be an excruciating exhibition of the two-fingered hunt-and-peck method.
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