Keyboarding Success Requires More than Drills

Drills have backstopped keyboarding since I was in high school. I still remember

rtyu

fghj

vbnm

Over and over I typed those until my fingers could find the keys with no help from my brain. It worked for thousands of us.

So why don’t drills work for the new generation of typists. There are a few reasons:

• Kids are learning keyboarding at a younger age. Where I started training in high school, now I teach pre-keyboarding to students as young as kindergarten. Drills simply aren’t the right approach for those younger brains.
• Drills must be repeated over and over ad nauseum to work. Few schools have time to commit to that rigor and even fewer kids will voluntarily take time at home. As a result, the repetitive part of drill is no longer exercised.

As a result, it didn’t surprise me when I got this letter from one of my readers:

I teach K-6 computers. I teach keyboarding in all grade levels, 3/4 specifically. However, I see this as a giant hurdle. When I teach keyboarding skills–home row, posture, finger placement and use of our online software–the kids get it! They really get it. I walk around the lab and they are using the software, the fingering is good. WPM are great, errors are down. But when I test them in Word processing, their fingering is terrible. Their errors go up and their fingering resorts back to hunt and peck. What gives? Every child, every grade level, every day of the year. Someone please tell me I am not the only one.

I hear this over and over again: Teachers invested in a sequenced keyboarding program. The weekly drills resulted in faster more accurate typing in the native program, but didn’t transfer to homework and projects.

Here’s why: Rote drills are only one leg of a four-legged stool that supports keyboarding literacy. Here’s what else you need:

Online games

Yes, that’s right. Games. About 20% of keyboard practice should be typing games like Nitro Type. This keeps repetitive drills from getting boring and makes keyboard practice fun.  Mix ggames inwith other keyboarding routines.

Quizzes

Give students at least one quiz each grading period, to let them measure their success. Make a big deal out of scores, improvement, and how close students get to grade-level goals. Post fastest typists–and fastest average class–on the wall in the classroom. I grade students on improvement, not how they compare to other students. First, students get to see they are improving, and second, for those who are competitive, they get measurable goals throughout the year.

Authentic Use

Require typing in classwork and homework. Remind students that–as they type the book report–they use good posture and habits. Get all the teachers on the grade-level team involved, as well as parents, so wherever students are typing, someone gently reminds them to use good habits. Once these are established, it’s muscle memory, like kicking a soccer ball with the side of your foot.

• It gets boring; students mentally fall asleep
• It doesn’t reflect reality. Nowhere in preparation for college or career are students asked to type home row ten times while goofy music plays in the background

Don’t leave this article planning to exorcise drills from your keyboarding program. Far from it. The distinguished education reformer, E. D. Hirsch Jr., considers it “helpful in making the procedures second nature, which allows you to focus on the structural elements of the problem.” Keep drill as one leg in your keyboarding program, as essential as smell is to a good recipe. Just not the only ingredient.

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.