learntotype Archives - Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

(I was given a copy of Keyboard Classroom in exchange for my honest opinion. This post also contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosures here and here.)

Back when they still offered typing in high school, I took it as an elective and I am glad I did.

Typing is a skill I have used to this day and so I wanted to be sure each one of my sons had a good grasp on the skill.

I don’t do the hunt/peck sort of typing just for the fact that on my job interviews back in the day they required timed tests. That is not my goal for my sons. I do have a list of things I am looking for in a typing program and a few of them are that it has to be easy to use, would teach typing in increments, have some way to see a record of their progress, could be used for multiple children or the family, incorporated some of the skills I learned as a quick typist like taking dictation and is pretty self-manageable. I don’t want to be managing lessons for another subject.

So when I was given the chance to use Keyboard Classroom for the past few months I was delighted.

Benefits of Keyboard Classroom

easy set up	the home screen is easily understandable by a child of any age
it has that incremental approach which I was looking for	repeat practice is the best way to learn typing as it is used in this program
games are used to incorporate fun and give you a sense of accomplishment. The minute Tiny figured out you only needed 2 tokens for a game, he over there on the games.	short spurts like one minute of work was good for Tiny too

Did you notice those nifty little finger guards up there in that first picture? They are placed on the keyboard to help your child keep his fingers in the right position. That is a nice plus for those who struggle to keep their fingers positioned correctly. I think that is the hardest part for any new typist.

We only used the finger guards for the first lesson or so because Tiny had some prior typing experience, not much, but he still was okay without them.

The greatest advantage for us in using this program is that it helped to strengthen Tiny’s finger reaches. Too, Tiny has had piano lessons so I think that helped in understanding finger placement. He found this program quite easy to understand, but it still presented a nice challenge when he went to the higher levels.

Look at the levels this program has:

Keyboard Finger Trainer/Typing Words/Home Stretch/Typing Sentences and Capital Stretch. Unlike some other typing programs I used with my older boys, with Keyboard Classroom Tiny seemed to make improvement a little faster. I think it was the satisfaction knowing that he completed a level.

The short one minute lessons were easy for Tiny to remember and do which is another unique feature about this program.

This next feature may or may not be good for you. Not sure it would appeal to girls either, but you never know. But you work hard to move through the ranks moving from cadet up to corporal and general. So that is the way used to show progress.

Of course I had to try out one or two drills to get the feel of it and one thing I figured out was that the child does not hit the enter key to return to the next line, but the space bar. I couldn’t really read on the site why that is an effective way to teach, but I think I would prefer he use the enter key which is more natural to typing.

When it comes to correcting errors, no big alarm or sirens go off, thank goodness. But you see a small x so you know that it was not correct.

I think the pricing is a bit cumbersome for homeschool families. It comes with a single user license and it can add up quickly when you have multiple children. Most of us, including me have multiple children that we might want to use this with.

If you have a pick up and go sort of style about teaching you may like this program because there were no videos to watch to learn how or interactive videos for the lessons. Too, if you are not interested in tracking progress other than moving through the ranks you will like the easy way Keyboard Classroom keeps up with progress.

Overall, the program was easy to learn and Tiny likes it and sneaks in the office to practice.