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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Can you type?
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BessLane
Shipmate
# 15176
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Posted
I took typing in the 8th grade. I can remember practicing using books in different languages so I could focus on where the various keys were rather than what the words were. When I was at my top form, I could well over 100 wpm with few if any errors. These days, I'm down to 85 to 90 wpm, depending on the way my hands feel that day...
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It's all on me and I won't tell it.
formerly BessHiggs
Posts: 1388 | From: Yorkville, TN | Registered: Sep 2009
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Gareth
Shipmate
# 2494
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
Because I touch-type (I need to feel the bumpy guide keys in the middle), I loathe typing on a tablet or similar.
When I am working on my tablet, I either use a bog-standard Bluetooth keyboard or I use voice dictation. Both are very effective - and what I really like is that I work on documents using voice dictation on an iPhone too.
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"Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope."
P. J. O'Rourke
Posts: 345 | From: Chaos | Registered: Mar 2002
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Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
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Posted
Wierdly, this had never occurred to me. However, I've now tried singing to the iPad - the results might make the basis of a reasonably good circus game.
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All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
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Augustine the Aleut
Shipmate
# 1472
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Posted
When I signed up to do typing, I was one of the two boys in the class-- I suspected that it would be useful for university as they had then begun to require typed essays. When I did go to university in Ireland, I was one of the few who typed them, and most submitted handwritten texts--- keyboard-capable students would make a few scillingai on the side by typing thesis drafts.
Most of the girls in the 5-year stream (in Ontario at the time, this was the university or academic stream) refused to learn to type as otherwise they would be relegated to secretarial jobs and never advance in the workplace. My best speed was 65wpm on a bilingual keyboard on a manual typewriter-- our (deemed by the girls to be very creepy and in Cornwall, Ontario, that took doing) typing teacher told me that if were a girl, he would have promoted me to the electric typewriters, but it was clear that boys never needed to get the higher speed levels which would guarantee them a good office job.
I can manage the AZERTY keyboard but bow to my classmate Fran who later served as a nurse in the volunteer auxiliary to the Israeli Defence Forces and worked up good speeds on both Hebrew and Arabic keyboards.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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ecumaniac
Ship's whipping girl
# 376
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Posted
I taught myself how to touch-type one summer towards the end of primary school, using my dad's manual typewriter and a secretarial skills book. (Yes, I had NO FRIENDS at all in primary school ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif) )
My favourite thing to type on is my Das Keyboard which has all blank keys and really noisy/clicky mechanical switches. The only problem is if I'm doing coding I need a little cheat sheet above the numbers because I can't remember where all the symbols are.
My constant switching between US, Australian and UK keyboard setups doesn't help!
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it's a secret club for people with a knitting addiction, hiding under the cloak of BDSM - Catrine
Posts: 2901 | From: Cambridge | Registered: Jun 2001
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
One of my work colleagues had a Das keyboard just to deliberately annoy people who used his PC. He also re-mapped several of the keys.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I opted out of learning to type and do shorthand because I knew if I did, I'd end up in some kind of secretarial job, and I didn't want to be a secretary. However, almost every job I've ever had has required me to spend a lot of time on a keyboard.
As a teenager I started off typing with two fingers but as speed wasn't great gradually started bringing more in until I could sort of touch type anyway (I can if I don't think about it). Mostly I do still look at the keyboard, but don't really care much for staring fixedly at the screen.
I know someone who types with two fingers and goes at a ferocious speed - and someone else who types with one finger. You wouldn't think it from the emails etc they produce, either.
I do think, though, that long-term it can't be good for anyone to spend much of the working day hammering a keyboard with 1-2 fingers and that typing courses ought to be more widely offered, especially by employers, than they are.
[ 24. May 2014, 19:33: Message edited by: Ariel ]
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
I took typing as an optional course during one summer during high school. It was my mother's idea: she thought it would be useful for me to know how to type, but also advised me when looking for jobs not to tell them I could type, precisely so I wouldn't be pigeonholed into a secretary job. This was in the late 70s.
I'm glad I took the course. It gave me the foundations of touch-typing. My speed, and more important my ability to type for long stretches without looking at the keyboard, only really picked up after a few years of working full time on computers. I needed both things -- the foundations, and the long period of enforced practice.
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
it was required in the middle grades (all genders) when I was in school (late 80's) and I was horrible at it. really, really horrible. it might have been my first F. (alas, not my last)
However, in college and after I've ended up doing a lot of writing and so I touch-type and last I checked, about 80wpm at around 90% accuracy. my mother despairs because I only use three fingers on each hand.
my children were not even offered it at school, and have ended up learning-as-they-go. when we switched littlest to homeschool, mom stepped in and required typing lessons. he hates it and is generally horrible at it, but is better than I am. not as fast, though. I may look a little spazzy but I'm FAST!. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
Yep, my dad decided that even though I was academic and going to uni, touch typing was a skill for the future and he made me take it for three years. And behold, it is a skill I have never regretted, possibly the only skill I retain from my high school years. Top speed in the old days over 100wpm, these days I'd be surprised if it was over 50, but its still faster than my colleagues.
It helped that for some strange reason the typing teacher also conducted the school choir, and I loved her to bits.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
We definitely weren't taught to type at Grammar School, where neat, clear, fluent handwriting was prized above all else. At Primary School it was Copperplate with Fountain pen. At College, my dissertation was typed by my Fiancé (now husband), as he had already taught himself to touch type. So I only got into typing with Mavis Beacon when it became apparent that I would be doing a lot more typing on the computer in future.
In most professions, people went from having a secretary to do such things, to having to do them themselves - an invaluable skill.
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Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
In the late '70s, first year at secondary school, we had a choice between Technical Drawing and Typing. Three boys chose Typing, including me. I can touch-type text at 60 wpm, but need to look at the keyboard when programming.
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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GCabot
Shipmate
# 18074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Late Paul:
One of my work colleagues had a Das keyboard just to deliberately annoy people who used his PC. He also re-mapped several of the keys.
The version with a completely blank keyboard?
If so, well done, although I imagine the clicking noise from the keyboard would have annoyed his co-workers enough already.
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The child that is born unto us is more than a prophet; for this is he of whom the Savior saith: "Among them that are born of woman, there hath not risen one greater than John the Baptist."
Posts: 285 | From: The Heav'n Rescued Land | Registered: Apr 2014
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Deputy Verger
Shipmate
# 15876
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Posted
I took typing and shorthand for some odd reason along with A-levels, and I think I got RSA certificates for them too, but I hated it and cheated. However, many many years of keyboard pounding since then, I am definitely looking at the result and not the action as I type this. However, I still don’t use my little fingers, and I never use the right shift key, only the one on the left.
A friend sat down to do something on my computer recently and was completely incapable, because my keyboard is so old and beat-up that all the vowels except U, plus the S and the L and most of the N, have been worn off the key faces. It doesn’t bother me at all.
Posts: 475 | From: London | Registered: Sep 2010
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
Typing was taught (as "secretarial studies) when I went to school (Scotland, 1970s), although I didn't take it up until I did a secretarial course at the local FE college in the early 1980s. We were taught touch-typing*, and I remember them having a sort of cover thing that hid your hands and the typewriter keys to make sure you didn't look at them. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
The emphasis at that time was on audio-typing, which I did for a living for three years after I qualified.
* on a typewriter - the college acquired its first, BBC Basic, word-processor just before we left to sit our final exams, and we were each given 10 minutes on this wonderful new technology where you could change things before committing them to paper!
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Spawn
Shipmate
# 4867
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Posted
Taught myself to touch type at about the age of 17 and 18 from exercises in a long forgotten book. I took an electronic type writer to University in the early 80s and was one of only a few to type up essays. At the time I was pretty fast, up to about 90wpm. I helped finance my student overdraft by signing up with secretarial agency during student vacations.
But as I recall touch typing was not on school curriculums back in my day.
Posts: 3447 | From: North Devon | Registered: Aug 2003
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Yangtze
Shipmate
# 4965
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Posted
Brit here. I'm always stunned that most people who use computers regularly at work can't touch type. It seems odd that more people use keyboards than ever before but proportionally fewer touch type. Surely it's one skill that really ought to be being taught at school.
My mother was a secretary and taught us the basics of touching typing on a typewriter, including, IIRC, complicated things with stickers on our fingers. But it wasn't till I had my first job and had to use a computer on a daily basis that I really got good at touch typing.
*edited to pluralise keyboard - I may be able to touch type but I clearly can't actually write!
[ 03. June 2014, 22:05: Message edited by: Yangtze ]
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Arthur & Henry Ethical Shirts for Men
organic cotton, fair trade cotton, linen
Sometimes I wonder What's for Afters?
Posts: 2022 | From: the smallest town in England | Registered: Sep 2003
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Arabella Purity Winterbottom
Trumpeting hope
# 3434
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by piglet:
The emphasis at that time was on audio-typing, which I did for a living for three years after I qualified.
I injured my knee so badly I couldn't drive for a while about five years ago. My job requires me to be able to drive, but as it was only a temporary problem, I went from clinical work to the typing pool for a couple of months. O M G! It was a right old eye opener, doing typing from dictaphones. One clinician regularly recorded notes while driving, so you'd be in the middle of serious stuff when it would be interrupted by, "Oh shit, there's a truck," or, "Hang on a minute, the dictaphone has gone down my bra."
I did enjoy it though, and I rather liked working with the other typists, who took themselves very lightly compared to my clinical colleagues. I was surprised that my typing was at about the same level as theirs, but I guess I type a lot for my job, and always under time constraints.
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Hell is full of the talented and Heaven is full of the energetic. St Jane Frances de Chantal
Posts: 3702 | From: Aotearoa, New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2002
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
Fast hunt-and-peck with 6 fingers, that's me, though I stopped using my thumb on the space bar when it got arthritic.
Such skill as I have I developed at uni, on a cheap portable typewriter. I bought paper by the quire. I can write much faster than I write.
Schools had stopped teaching the Commercial stream shorthand/typing by the time my daughter (now 43) went to high school – someone had realised that shorthand was just as difficult to learn as French so why expect the 'lower' non-academic girls (mostly) to do it. But she did a course in her final year that was useful ay uni and is a good typist.
I think all our first year kids at high school (age 12/13) do one term keyboarding but maybe they do some at primary school. I'll ask them.
I took out my old portable typewriter to entertain the grandchildren. Wow! it was hard to hit the keys hard enough!
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
There was a move to suggest that primary children should be taught touch typing in the ICT sessions, but this was, in my view properly, resisted. (Along with using office standard software - like that was going to be what they would use by the time they hit offices in a decade!) Using the machines for doing lots of interesting stuff was more appropriate. Pity we dropped the BBC Basic and Logo, though.
The academy has issued Ys 5&6 with tablets now, so touch typing is going to be even more distant.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
I still touch-type or I would never attempt to write novels!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arabella Purity Winterbottom:
... it would be interrupted by, "Oh shit, there's a truck," or, "Hang on a minute, the dictaphone has gone down my bra." ...
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
The senior partner (for whom, thank God, I never worked) at the firm of solicitors where I worked was in the habit of sneezing, coughing and burping into his dictaphone without bothering to go back and re-record, which caused much mirth.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Persephone Hazard
Ship's Wench
# 4648
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Posted
Like several others here I don't touch type properly, but I use all my fingers, I'm pretty fast - about 80-85wpm - and I don't look at the keyboard while I type. (Actually, that's not quite true - I mostly look at the screen, but I do glance down occasionally. Which I am now super aware of because I'm writing about it. It's like when someone starts talking about blinking and then your blinks feel like they will never be natural again. Bugger, now I can't blink *or* type naturally!)
I am also perfectly capable of typing quickly and pretty accurately while looking in the opposite direction and talking to someone about something else, which freaks some people out for some reason.
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A picture is worth a thousand words, but it's a lot easier to make up a thousand words than one decent picture. - ken.
Posts: 1645 | From: London | Registered: Jun 2003
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GCabot
Shipmate
# 18074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
There was a move to suggest that primary children should be taught touch typing in the ICT sessions, but this was, in my view properly, resisted.
Why? The only consequence I can see is putting these children at a severe disadvantage in the future.
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The child that is born unto us is more than a prophet; for this is he of whom the Savior saith: "Among them that are born of woman, there hath not risen one greater than John the Baptist."
Posts: 285 | From: The Heav'n Rescued Land | Registered: Apr 2014
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by GCabot:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
There was a move to suggest that primary children should be taught touch typing in the ICT sessions, but this was, in my view properly, resisted.
Why? The only consequence I can see is putting these children at a severe disadvantage in the future.
Because, if the only contact the children have with computers is an extremely boring repetitive session which does nothing to engage and enthuse them, they aren't going to learn. These are primary school children who should be learning through attractive activities which approximate to play. Teach them programming which makes things happen. Teach them stuff which helps them learn to think. Time for touch typing in the teens, when the awareness of time is different, and the same length of lesson seems shorter.
And in the future they will be using tablets with touch screens and speech recognition software, which works, anyway.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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lily pad
Shipmate
# 11456
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Posted
Actually, there are a wide variety of really fun games for learning touch typing at home and at school. I've worked in two elementary schools - one that does teach keyboarding and one that does not. In the school where proper hand placement and speed and accuracy have been practiced, the students are far more capable of more advanced activities on their computers. In the school that does not teach keyboarding, the students spend most of their time hunting for the correct keys and correcting errors.
For me, it is like learning the times tables in grade three or four. If you skip it, you slow down your learning later on because that step in a math problem is not automatic.
I've done some very satisfying projects in the computer lab with 10-12 year olds that I could never have done in the school where keyboard skills were not taught well in the early grades.
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Sloppiness is not caring. Fussiness is caring about the wrong things. With thanks to Adeodatus!
Posts: 2468 | From: Truly Canadian | Registered: May 2006
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
And it wasn't actually included in the curriculum, in the days when there was a national one of those, and the children could access the work they were required to do without touch typing, to a standard which Ofsted was very happy with.
Incidentally, when I looked at the Y6 work, in my capacity as ICT Coordinator, I found that the best work was done by those who, for other reasons, had problems with language. Brilliantly creative presentations which really made use of the capacities of the programs.
If we had been using the machines for producing extended writing tasks, then there might have been a need for the typing to keep up with the minds of the writers, but we weren't. One of the reasons was the amount of time available for any one child to have access to a keyboard. Not enough. The other was the changes in the language curriculum which made it unnecessary for extended writing to be done in any format. It apparently wasn't boy friendly.
I did make sure that the children used both hands, and from what I saw in the computer club, they were not spending excessive amounts of time finding keys.
I think touch typing would have needed more time than we could have had, with individual access to computers. One hour sessions in the room per week, where there were enough machines for children to work in pairs, not ones, just didn't allow for that sort of work. We had to have sessions for all the 12 classes, plus the special needs unit, and each of those classes had to have all the other subjects squeezed into the school day. We even had to dump any time spent on actual handwriting, and reading to children, both of which I think are pretty vital. (Both help with other literacy skills: cursive writing helps to fix spellings in the mind by dealing with whole words - typing fails at that; and story learning helps to develop interpretive skills ahead of the deciphering of print.) PE got cut down to a single afternoon a week, from two half hour gym lessons and a games or swimming afternoon session for each year.
Given that, introducing the children to what could be done with a computer in terms of art, research, editing text, presentations, making animations, photo processing, desk top publishing, use of spreadsheets, & manipulating simulations, seemed much more appropriate than just learning touch typing, especially when many primary children lack the coordination to do it successfully. The problems I had with children trying to learn to play the recorder (ooops, forgot producing music on the computer) made it quite clear how many children have difficulty getting their fingers to do what they want when they want them to at the ages they were. I think it's vital not to make children believe that they are failures, when they are developmentally not ready for an activity. When they get to secondary education, and the physical developmental stages are appropriate is time enough to develop those skills (and if they have got used to using both hands equally, so it's extending learning, not unlearning).
After all, back in the days of typewriters, no-one had learned any keyboarding skills before that age, and still girls picked it up well enough to satisfy their employers. I think it's developmentally wrong to push too much learning appropriate for older children down into the primary age groups.
There's stuff on threads about males and education which is relevant to this.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
"A picture is worth a thousand words, but it's a lot easier to make up a thousand words than one decent picture." - Ken.
Poor Ken... I miss him. He had a real way with words.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
How do typists find touch screen keyboards?
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
What about those virtual keyboards someone thought up where something sensed where you placed your fingers on a projected image of a keyboard on the actual desktop?
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Just backing up my girl Penny:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
Snap, and I get an extra point for being female and sciencey.
And Horseman Bree, can you go and contribute some of that on the touch typing thread? My feeling that it is wholly inappropriate for primary children seems to be falling on deaf ears ... or appropriate metaphor.
? The hell?
Most primary kid fingers do not have the kind of reach they need to comfortably do home- row touch-typing.
Go and read. Apparently by not teaching it I have been depriving them forever of an essential skill. (Not just the reach, the coordination.)
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Nonsense. Do we teach kids cursive the minute they pick up a pen? Allowing them to hunt and peck the keyboard for a good space of time allows them to get a good mental map of the keyboard itself, so that when touch typing comes, they have an idea of where the keys are.
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Once again-- boil the water, then add pasta.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
Thank you.
Mind you, we might have a fruitful conversation about when to start cursive...
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
How do typists find touch screen keyboards?
With their fingers?
Strange though it may first seem, the small keyboard on my iPhone not as bad as a tablet.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
There's not much in the way of formal "typing" classes, but the students seem to be able to rattle the keys at an adequate speed any time I observe them. Until we get everyone on tablets with voice, the kids will learn to type - how else will they get anything done - emailed homework assignments and papers, chat rooms, all sorts of stuff.
And, at last, the boys' inability to hand write doesn't matter!
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Exposure to typing is no problem, in my mind-- It's just the home- row touch typing thing that we're deciding is bonkers for primary school expectations, right?
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Unless they want to - I have come across a few older (7,8 or older) primary students who have seen me touch type and wanted to try, so I've found them Mavis Beacon or the BBC Dance Mat typing and let them have a go. One or two persisted and learned.
But primary pupils can be determined to learn something if they want it enough. Typing is not that dissimilar to playing the piano.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I" If they want to," sure, but that would be the key phrase. If they want to, it implies they can manage it.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Carys
Ship's Celticist
# 78
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Posted
Touch typing was never taught at school but when we got the A3000 (summer term of Yr 7) we got a typing programme and I taught myself. I'm typing this on a bluetooth keyboardfor my tablet. I hate the onscreenkeyboard because it doesn't work with touch typing. I'm in fact typing this whilelookingat the televeision not even the screenof the tablet!
Carys
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O Lord, you have searched me and know me
You know when I sit and when I rise
Posts: 6896 | From: Bryste mwy na thebyg | Registered: May 2001
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Carys
Ship's Celticist
# 78
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Posted
Last post would have been more impressive if the spacebar had been working!
Carys
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O Lord, you have searched me and know me
You know when I sit and when I rise
Posts: 6896 | From: Bryste mwy na thebyg | Registered: May 2001
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
I don't get why it wouldn't be useful to teach primary children, once they've learnt to write. It's surely no more complex than learning piano, and it's a useful skill to have. And also very handy for those who have disabilities that make handwriting difficult. I went to school with a kid who had a visual disability and she had been taught to touch type at around age 7 as a result of this - she was very adept at it.
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fineline:
I don't get why it wouldn't be useful to teach primary children, once they've learnt to write. It's surely no more complex than learning piano, and it's a useful skill to have. And also very handy for those who have disabilities that make handwriting difficult. I went to school with a kid who had a visual disability and she had been taught to touch type at around age 7 as a result of this - she was very adept at it.
The problem is that children differ in the size of their hands and in the development of muscle control. I think teaching touch-typing to ten-year-olds is a good idea. Almost all of them will be physically ready for it.
You spoke of the piano. My older daughter was very musical; when she was five years old the only thing she wanted for Christmas was a musical instrument. She was extremely small for her age, so we started her on a 1/8 size violin. Her hands were not large enough to do much with a piano until she was about ten.
Moo
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Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Fineline
Shipmate
# 12143
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
The problem is that children differ in the size of their hands and in the development of muscle control. I think teaching touch-typing to ten-year-olds is a good idea. Almost all of them will be physically ready for it.
You spoke of the piano. My older daughter was very musical; when she was five years old the only thing she wanted for Christmas was a musical instrument. She was extremely small for her age, so we started her on a 1/8 size violin. Her hands were not large enough to do much with a piano until she was about ten.
Yes, ten would be a good age. Or maybe eight. I wasn't thinking five, as children are still learning to write at that stage. I'd see it as most important to wait till the children are fairly competent at reading and writing - to be familiar with the alphabet and how words and language work.
I don't see hand size as a difficulty - the finger stretching on a regular computer keyboard is far less than that of a piano, and there are also plenty of netbooks, including those made specially for kids, with smaller keyboards.
Regarding muscle control, it's important to do things that require muscle control, to help develop it. Writing requires fine motor skills just as much as typing does - probably more so - but children still start learning to write at age 5. Sure, it's difficult to begin with, as they don't have that control, but they still start and the control develops.
I remember we had a term of typing lessons at school when I was eleven, and my typing teacher said that children who play the piano tend to be faster at learning to type because they've already developed that particular type of muscle control and strength. Although I guess finger strength isn't required so much now people use keyboards - we were using old-fashioned typewriters back then, which required quite strong strokes!
Posts: 2375 | From: England | Registered: Dec 2006
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I've had piano teachers actively dissuade me from starting my kid in piano till he was about eight or nine, telling me I'd be wasting time before then. As they were speaking against their own financial interest,I assumed they knew what they were talking about, and held off. The hand size has made a difference to what LL can handle as he grows (he's got a ten-key reach right now!) and I can see how it would matter for fullsize computer keyboards as well.
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Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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ecumaniac
Ship's whipping girl
# 376
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Posted
Yeah, my piano teacher wouldn't take me until age 7. But I have friends who started on scaled down string instruments really really early, and did great.
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it's a secret club for people with a knitting addiction, hiding under the cloak of BDSM - Catrine
Posts: 2901 | From: Cambridge | Registered: Jun 2001
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
I started piano lessons at age nine. I have big hands and learned well. Although we have a piano, I rarely play although knowing how to read music really helps me when I sing bass in a local choir which performs at our local Irish cultural center...
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Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
Coming from a musical family, I'd restrict music lessons until 15. It warps your personality and musicality otherwise. Then again, I'd restrict Bible studies as well to a similar age, to remove the sense of knowing what's going to happen and that faith is a kid thing. And again, children's mileage vary - just make sure that it's completely voluntary so as not to remove the pleasure and play from adult musicality. If you're after skill, that's something you'll build ten times as quickly after 15 anyway. (I can hear the hissing of purists in the wings, but I've got a nice set of true stories to back this up.)
As for typing, I got touch typing classes in school but they gave me very, very little and I didn't pick it up then at all. However, getting an own computer at 15, I learned it by chatting and writing on forums, and got even better in university. One professor called me the most ardent note-taker he'd seen.
Never tested my speed, but I'd guess somewhere around 50-60 wpm, with about 80-90% accuracy, depending on what kind of typing. Class note-taking has accuracy plummeting as it's for memory, not reading. Like Comet, I only use three fingers on each hand (except thumbs for space of course). Balance works out better that way, or something.
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Formerly JFH
Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009
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