What I’ve learned from my ten years of volunteering in school computer labs: The MOST important grade for increasing efficiency and reading skills in school is FIRST GRADE. And first graders can definitely learn to touch-type. No matter what the obstacles (and there were many) it’s important to encourage each kid to really learn to touch type. It takes practice, but with Read, Write & Type the practice is fun! Kids have such a wide variation in how their brains are wired, there’s a huge difference in practice time to learn the sound-to-keystroke (letter) habit. But the practice is worth it, because they’re learning the skills they need for reading and writing at the same time. And if they master the keyboard they are much more efficient and confident in their writing all through the rest of their school years.

-Fred Lewis

A message from Fred Lewis:

“Please read this article (Typing is the key to learning computer software). Kids need a keyboarding license before using a computer….just like a drivers license to drive.  Only Read, Write and Type does this. Middle school is way too late to teach touch typing.”

Teachers are waking up to the importance of typing skills for using just about any software program. But mostly they start too late–after hunt-and-peck habits have settled in. However, thousands of children are learning to type IN FIRST GRADE as they learn basic phonics skills with Read,Write & Type.

8 free lessons at www.talkingfingers.com.

Your child will only learn to read and write once! Don’t miss it!

Sometimes it happens in the space of a few short months. You can play a vital role, and it may be one of the most significant things you and your child ever do together. Reading and writing are the most important skills children learn for success and happiness in school and beyond.

Learning to read and write is a staggering accomplishment, much more difficult than learning to speak and to understand speech. Becoming literate is one of the most essential major learning experiences of modern life. It is a valuable tool for personal expression, and a doorway to the written wisdom of the brightest and most interesting members of the human tribe since history began.

I believe that computers offer an extraordinary opportunity for parents to participate in this critical learning experience with their children. Educational software and learning materials provid a unique framework for short enjoyable day-to-day lessons. A few minutes each day is all that it takes.

You will learn to help your child hear and identify the individual sounds in spoken words and represent those sounds with letters. Each of the 40 sounds can be made visible with a simple fingers-stroke on the keyboard. With these three skills, children can learn to write any word in their vocabulary – five or six thousand words for most first graders. (Spelling correctly will develop as they practice). There are only 40 sounds in English and 40 lessons to play. Play together 30 minutes/day for a week!

You’ll have so much fun, you won’t want to stop!

It’s easy! You’ll find a way to continue after a week, because you will realize that you are making an enormous difference. The lessons you learn on a computer can translate into real-life games as well, that you can play with your child in the car, or at the kitchen table. Spend the time finding the perfect computer program to use with your child. Then spend the time learning together. You won’t regret it.

We were on port tack in the middle of the Atlantic, moving fairly smoothly toward landfall in the Azores. Our family of four was on the way from New Orleans to West Africa in our 31 foot sloop.  After some rough days, it was a relief to keep my food down and enjoy being at the helm. Melissa, 11, was reading in the hammock, and Matthew, 13, was wedged in the companionway typing his log.  I had been encouraging him to use our little portable typewriter, because he was left-handed and had considerable difficulty writing legibly.  I was sympathetic because I could remember my own elementary school tears, trying to write as a lefthander.  I remember forcing myself to turn the paper to the right and hold my hand under the line so I wouldn’t smudge the ink.

Matthew used the left-handed  “inverted” hand posture when he wrote, cocking his wrist and using the larger muscles of his wrist and arm rather than the fine motor coordination of his fingers.  The letters ran together as if his mind was racing ahead of his fingers.  He missed details, like dotting i’s and crossing t’s.  He didn’t notice his spelling errors and could hardly read what he wrote.

He discovered typing on our voyage to Africa.  For “schoolwork”, we asked both children to keep a log of daily activities and events.  We had a contract to write a book about the voyage with all four of us as authors.  He soon realized that typing was going to make the task much easier.  He could read what he wrote, for example.  But realizing that he spelled better when he typed came as a sudden revelation.

On this particular day, he turned around with great excitement to announce his discovery.  “Mom, I spell better when I type!”  And it was true.  I compared several samples of writing cursive or printing with a pencil and with keyboard over the next months and there was no question that he spelled better when he printed and when he typed.

So began my interest in writing as an important element of language development, and in the possibilities of how the keyboard might be a tool for facilitating reading, writing, and spelling for young learners.

It’s true that typing on the computer has become an easier way for all of us to write. Should we go back to cursive?  The educational goal for writing is for children to be able to express their thoughts in text and to edit and refine those thoughts in order to communicate clearly and effectively.  If this process is easier using a word processor—no erasing, no throwing out the paper and starting over—then children will spend more time writing and enjoy it more.  Research has shown that children write longer stories and make more edits and revisions when they use a word processor. Isn’t that what we want to encourage?

However they do not write more easily on the computer if they are “hunting and pecking”.  They need to learn how to type. So why are we waiting until fifth grade or later to teach children to type, when they can learn it in first grade?  It’s actually easier to press keys than to bend their little fingers around a pencil and form letters.  Why not help them do both? They could establish a touch-typing habit early, so writing can become as enjoyable as possible.  What do you think?