Typing Trainer

How to use it

You need a keyboard. Pick a lesson, read the finger guide, then press Start typing. The clock starts when you press your first key.

• The finger guide. Each key on the picture keyboard has the colour of the finger that presses it, the same on both hands. The little bumps on F and J are marked, because they tell your pointer fingers where home is. The two hands show which finger to use next.
• Typing. The word or sentence is on the screen, and the next key lights up. Press it with the finger shown. A wrong key does not move you on: press the right one. You never need Backspace.
• Capital letters. To type a capital, hold Shift with the little finger on the other hand from the letter. The guide lights up the right Shift for you.
• Your numbers. You see your speed in words per minute and your accuracy as you type. When a lesson is finished, you get up to three stars and a list of the keys that slipped.
• The 60-second test. Type as many words as you can in one minute, using every key you know.

There are 12 lessons, and none of them is locked. They go through the home row, the top row, the bottom row, the numbers, capital letters and punctuation, and end with facts from NOVA Learn to type. On a phone or a tablet you can look at the lessons and the finger guide, but to type you need a keyboard.

Why it works

Touch typing means typing without looking at your hands. Each finger has its own keys, so after enough practice your fingers find them without help, the way you can tie a shoelace without thinking about it. Looking at the screen instead of the keys means you spot your mistakes straight away.

Every lesson adds a few new keys, and the words and sentences only use the keys you have learned so far. The word lessons use real words, including the picture words from our Spell It tool, and the later lessons use short, true facts from NOVA Learn explainers, such as How do bats find food in the dark? and How does a platypus find food with its eyes shut?. The keyboard is the usual QWERTY one. It is named after the first six letters on its top row, and it has been used on typewriters since the 1870s.

Speed is counted the standard way. Typists count every 5 characters as one word, so words per minute is the number of characters you typed, divided by 5, divided by the minutes you spent. Spaces and punctuation count as characters. The clock starts with your first key and stops while the page is not in front.

Accuracy comes first. Accuracy is the right key presses as a percentage of all your key presses. Typing fast with mistakes is slower in the end, because every slip costs time to put right, so the stars are for accuracy: one for finishing, two for 90 per cent or better, and three for 97 per cent or better. A best speed is only saved when your accuracy is 90 per cent or more. Speed is never rewarded on its own, so nobody is rushed, and nothing is ever taken away.

If your accuracy drops, the tool gently suggests slowing down. If the Caps Lock key is on by accident, it tells you.

For parents and teachers

The Typing Trainer is written for Years 3 to 8. Short, regular practice works better than one long session, so ten minutes a few times a week is plenty. The lessons are in the order that most touch-typing courses use, so they work with whatever your school teaches.

Ideas to try:

• Sit well: feet flat, back straight, wrists floating a little above the keyboard, and the screen at eye level.
• Cover the keys with a tea towel, or look only at the screen, so the fingers learn without the eyes.
• Do one lesson at a time, and move on when the accuracy is 90 per cent or more, not when the speed is high.
• Look at the list of keys to practise at the end of a lesson, and go back to the lesson that teaches them.
• Use the 60-second test once a week, and compare it with the last one.

Typing speeds vary a lot between children and between days, so please do not treat the numbers as a score. Smooth and accurate is the goal, and the speed comes by itself.

The tool works with a physical keyboard. A touchscreen on its own cannot be used to practise, and the tool says so. The only thing it saves is your stars and your best speeds, on this device, and it sends nothing anywhere. The tool is built for a standard QWERTY keyboard, as sold in Australia.