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What's a good typing speed for a 6th grader?


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I come from the dinosaur era when we learned on an honest to goodness IBM typewriter as a course in high school. :laugh: After college I worked temp jobs as a secretary sometimes and had a 90 wpm speed. But I certainly never learned to type in elementary school and have no idea what would be considered "normal". Currently she's using Typing Instructor and/or Typing.com and she's up to about 25 wpm with decent form. Is this good enough to prepare her for typing papers in middle school and high school? Now that she knows how do I let her stop the software programs and just practice with typing her papers? Or should I push her to get faster?

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I'd keep her practicing at least 20 minutes a day if you can.

 

She's close to the point where keyboarding by touch (I'm assuming she is touch keyboarding without looking at her hands) is going to be faster than looking at her hands while she types. Once she gets to that point, she will just naturally develop faster speed as she uses the keyboard. That would be my goal. I haven't tested them, but I do know my 6th graders are at the point where they naturally keyboard without looking because it's quicker. And that's what I was going for.

 

I had one of mine take a keyboarding test just now. He tested 40 wpm, adjusted to 36 with errors. I think he's probably the faster of my two, because he always chooses to keyboard rather than hand write when given a choice. He learned the keyboard over a year ago, and keyboards on his own most days when writing stories himself.

 

I would want something closer to or in the 30's for her, and would assume that will come relatively quickly if she just keeps keyboarding, assuming she is touch keyboard/isn't watching her hands while she practices.

 

ETA: I taught keyboarding in high school. I did design elementary and middle school programs for our school system, but had my kids and quit teaching before I could see how all that worked out in our system.

Edited by sbgrace
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I'd keep her practicing at least 20 minutes a day if you can.

 

She's close to the point where keyboarding by touch (I'm assuming she is touch keyboarding without looking at her hands) is going to be faster than looking at her hands while she types. Once she gets to that point, she will just naturally develop faster speed as she uses the keyboard. That would be my goal. I haven't tested them, but I do know my 6th graders are at the point where they naturally keyboard without looking because it's quicker. And that's what I was going for.

 

 

She does do it by touch most of the time, especially when just typing random words. But when she does full sentences, she has to look at her fingers every once in a while. So I think I'll have her keep practicing for a while. Thanks for the advice!

 

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When my husband and I were kids we used instant messaging programs to talk to other homeschoolers a lot. And since it was a conversation you had to type quickly to keep up. It increased our speed a LOT.

 

Now there's facebook, and instant messaging is less popular, but I wonder if there's any safe chat rooms or or kids forums or anything they might be interested in. 

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I am not sure exactly where my 6th grader is, but probably about 25 wpm. One thing that helps here is that we type his spelling words. In our case, we're using Sequential Spelling, which is pattern based, and we do several lists per day. Typing those patterns over and over makes them more automatic. It doesn't help with punctuation, but we're doing grammar sentences on the computer as well, and that is helping a bit with punctuation. The Sequential Spelling people have a pattern based typing program as well, but it's in book form (AVKO Keyboarding, I think).

 

I can type in probably the 40 wpm range (maybe faster), and (shh...) I still sometimes look at my hands for certain punctuation sequences. I am pitiful with numbers and symbols on the regular keyboard, but I still type well enough to be more efficient than most people if that gives you some realistic figures.

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