Keyboard nightmares?
Touch typing isn’t the answer
By Louise Kinross
When I grew up we were taught touch typing, memorizing the place of each key and the finger that should strike it, so that eventually we could type without looking. We placed our fingers on “home row,” then did meaningless drills, such as using our right index finger to hit “j” repeatedly.
Touch typing is still the gold standard for keyboarding instruction, but for children with fine-motor problems, it’s a recipe for failure, says Cynthia Tam, occupational therapist at Bloorview.
“Children who struggle to use a pencil to print are not able to move and isolate each finger, which is the basis of touch typing,” Cynthia says. “When children have fine-motor difficulties, we want to give them a computer to take away the fine-motor challenge. But touch typing simply adds another barrier.”
A Bloorview study of 15 clients with physical disabilities in 2003 found that a “hunt and peck” approach with one or two fingers – where children scan the board for the key they want and hit it – was more effective.
Based on their findings, a team of Bloorview occupational therapists and rehab engineers developed an interactive, game-based typing program that focuses on getting kids to type functional words rather than practise letter combinations using all 10 fingers.
Thirty-two children aged six to 12 with a variety of developmental and physical disabilities have taken the 10-week program. Each week, they begin with a group activity such as typing bingo, or chatting live with each other or online through Ability Online, a community of children with disabilities and illnesses. Then they learn a new typing game.
Bloorview occupational therapists Jennifer Mays and Mary-Beth Sophianopoulos created 10 types of games with multiple themes. For example, in Type Your Own Adventure, children type phrases or sentences to direct what happens next in an illustrated story. In Colour by Typing, they type the names of colours to fill in areas of a picture. In Wacky Stories, they type silly words into a story.
“We try to use high-frequency words so that they become automatic at typing those words,” Jennifer says. “And the games are interactive – they’re typing something to get the computer to do something, so it’s engaging.”
Children do 10-minute challenges each day as homework. By the end of the program, students on average increased their word speed by three-and-a-half words per minute, and accuracy and punctuation improved. “Some parents reported that they were doing better with spelling skills and were more confident with computers,” Jennifer says.
The goal isn’t that children become speed typists, but that they acquire a speed that’s faster than they could print. “Only a secretary needs to type at 80 to 100 words per minute,” Cynthia says. “A lot of adults type with one or two fingers, at 30 words per minute, and they’re functional at work.”
The Bloorview typing program is offered in the spring and fall. Call 416-425-6220, ext. 3639.
