Monday, May 2, 2011

BBC Typing

If you have a child who is learning to type, check out BBC's Dance Mat Typing before you buy any software. This is a free typing program available online and perfect for elementary aged students who are learning to type.

Rock-and-roll animals guide you through learning each of the letters in Flash animation. After learning the position of the letters, you practice lines of typing, as a little record "breaks" at the end of each line of type. Every few lines is another encouraging animation. If you make a mistake, the correct letter on the pictured keyboard calls out, "Me, me!"

Only a few letters are introduced at a time and the practice is mostly real words, not lines of random letters. The letters you have learned are shown in bright colors and are color coded with a different color for each finger.

Your child will need to remember what lesson he or she is on, there's no login so the computer doesn't save the information for you. Sometimes the guides are a bit difficult to understand because they have a strong accent, but this never seemed to bother my son. All the lowercase letters and the shift key are introduced, but not the numbers and extra symbols or tabs.

The website is a great introduction to typing for a beginner. My son can now touch type and is building speed by actually typing the things he is writing.

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