I have mixed feelings about teaching keyboarding to first graders – their little hands are so tiny that it’s very difficult to keep fingers on the homerow keys. With that said, it is important for children to begin to get familiar with where the keys are located.

A few years ago we bought Color-Coded Keyboards from Chester Creek Technologies.

These keyboards are helpful in that student see which keys correspond to each finger. When a child is searching for a letter, it’s also easy to say, “The N is a blue key on the bottom row.”

I haven’t done much with keyboarding with the first graders this year because we lost the software we used to use. In our upgrade to Windows 7, we discovered that Typing Pal, Jr. does not work! However, Dance Mat Typing from the BBC is a fun alternative!

This is one of the best keyboarding sites I’ve come across. Students love it because it is engaging and fun! In fact, even if a student finishes the program, they absolutely do not mind going through it again!

On Wednesday, I introduced Dance Mat Typing to our first graders. They worked hard for the 10 minutes that I’d allotted for practice and all agreed it was something they would like to practice over the summer.

I got a kick out of listening to one of the students – he was practicing the homerow keys by typing words. I could hear him spelling out each word as he typed: d-a-s-h, h-a-s, s-a-s-h. I don’t think he had any idea he was saying anything outloud!

Students won’t have perfect form right now (and it’s certainly not expected!) but this wasa good introduction to keyboarding!