Speaking Solutions

The Top 10 Things

Wrong with Elementary Keyboarding

1. Very Few Elementary Typing Teachers Are Trained Properly: In most states, Business Education teachers report that hourly, untrained lab assistants are often assigned to teach elementary typing. These individuals often have no formal typing/ergonomic training. Training is the key!!! Elementary teachers need to know what we know as Business teachers about keyboarding safety.

2. No Adjustable Chairs: I have visited hundreds of typing labs and I have yet to see adjustable chairs in elementary keyboarding labs. This is in ergonomic disaster. As a result, many young students must reach up, placing their wrists in an improper position. As students grow taller, they find themselves reaching down, creating a similar problem. Nearly every elementary student I have ever seen type rest their hands on the table due to improper ergonomic workstations.

3. Some Elementary Schools Start Way Too Early: While common convention dictates that fourth grade is about the earliest year to begin typing instruction, K-3 programs abound. What are these schools thinking?

4. We Must Question the Impact of Repetitive Motions on Growing Hands: Evidence is starting to emerge that could lead us to the sad conclusion that intensive typing before hands are fully developed may increase the risk of RSI among teenagers and young adults.

5. Handwriting Recognition Makes Elementary Typing Less Important: Microsoft Office XP introduced handwriting recognition in May 2001. Every educator that I have shown this technology to has come to the conclusion that it can replace elementary typing. One business professional said it best, "It makes the investment in typing instruction a waste of resources." I wouldn't go that far... but we have already trained over 250 students in handwriting recognition at Farrer, and all of them are instantly successful with the technology within 10-20 minutes. (Average input speed with handwriting recognition is between 20-30 wpm. That number speaks for itself. Imagine, 20-30 wpm in 20 minutes of training for an average student who has learned proper penmanship in elementary school.)

6. Speech Recognition Technology Makes Elementary Typing Less Important: In 5-10 class periods, an average eighth grader can learn to speak at input speeds of 110-160 wpm with 95 percent accuracy or higher. This is better than the very best typists can maintain after years, and years, and years of typing practice.

7. Computers are Changing Fast: By the time the average fourth grader reaches high school, the need for keyboarding may be evaporating as computers change. By the time they reach college, they could be looking back on the keyboard fondly, the way our generation now looks back upon punch cards. Tablet PC computers, handhelds, and portables make typing less necessary. These new tools lend themselves naturally to handwriting and speech recognition technologies.

8. The Opportunity/Learning Cost of Keyboarding Is Too High: One administrator asked this question, "Isn't there a better use of instructional time? Shouldn't more time be spent in reading, in math, in penmanship,and in learning other basic skills?" Kids today don't have cursive skills the way they did a generation ago. Penmanship is the key to handwriting accuracy. Time currently spent keyboarding may need to be channeled to the new technologies required for computer literacy:

Clear Enunciation
Reading Aloud
Penmanship

9. Too Much Time Spent Breaking Bad Habits: Ask any Business Education instructor at the high school level and they will tell you that they must spend more and more time each year eliminating bad typing habits. Normally, they blame this on the fact that elementary keyboarding instructors are not trained to teach the subject and are not certified in ergonomic techniques. They also report that the turnover among elementary typing assistants is very high -- rendering ineffective the inservice efforts to train elementary keyboarding instructors properly.

10. Keyboarding Isn't Fun: Students that start typing in elementary school quickly grow bored of continuous typing classes, which also diminishes their interest in computers because they associate going to the computer lab with endless hours of repetitive typing. Students report that every year in some elementary school programs they started with the home row and never got much past it. Every year was a "do over" of the home row. They never learned the upper and lower reaches!

My advice... train those elementary teachers extremely well, or you'll spend most of your keying time breaking bad habits as they come into middle school and high school.

If you wish to talk more about this issue, I would be happy to discuss this perplexing issue in more detail at karlb@speakingsolutions.com.

Sincerely,
Karl Barksdale