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Realizing that Gen Z and younger students have become accustomed to thumbs-only typing on mobile devices, some school districts have brought renewed attention to keyboarding.
Orange County Public Schools in Orlando, Florida, rolled out a pilot 1:1 device program during the 2012-13 school year and purchased keyboarding software that same year that students can log onto anytime they want to practice their typing. In the years since, a growing number of teachers have begun to regularly require it — especially in middle and high school English language arts and social studies classes, said Allison Kibbey, director of instructional technology and library media for the district.
“Kids love it. Teachers love it,” said Kibbey, who taught 7th and 8th grade ELA at one of the seven pilot schools for the 1:1 device initiative, which went district-wide in 2020 out of necessity when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
“Sometimes it’s offered for extra credit, and sometimes it’s required a few times a week, at the teacher’s discretion,” Kibbey said of keyboarding in the district.
Carol Parker, instructional coach at Rockvale Middle School in Rockvale, Tennessee, noted that learning to touch-type allows students to focus on the content of what they are typing rather than the mechanics, which impacts cognitive performance.
“Children who do not develop these computer keyboarding skills may be limited in the quality of their work due to having fewer cognitive resources accessible to work effectively,” Parker said.
Kibbey said she required her middle school students to practice their keyboarding.
“Quite honestly, watching them hack the keyboard [with their thumbs] was very painful to watch,” she said.
Students in Orange County Public Schools receive devices from their first days of school, with iPads issued to kindergarteners and 1st graders, who “are the most proficient little iPad people I have ever met,” Kibbey said.
In 2nd grade, students transition to laptops. As they start to use the traditional keyboard, “They start to realize, ‘This is different from the thumb-typing I’m used to,’” Kibbey said. “It takes more dexterity to use their laptops efficiently. Kids are so good at thumb-typing, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to the keyboard.”
Parker suggests introducing keyboard awareness as early as kindergarten and correct techniques by 3rd grade — at which point students have the requisite dexterity — ramping up additional keyboarding and computer skills each year thereafter.
“Students are required to use computers almost daily in schools,” Parker said. Though formal keyboarding instruction isn’t always implemented, she added, students should still be expected to practice and develop those skills in the same way they’ll use them to complete standardized testing.
Learning keyboarding skills helps students get through whatever tasks they are performing in a given class a little more efficiently, Kibbey said, and being able to type well removes a barrier toward using the technology they have in front of them for its full benefit.
“With our younger students, and middle-school students, I think about it like this: Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither are kids’ typing skills,” Kibbey said. “You can’t sit down at a keyboard and learn proper typing without some sort of engaging way to learn and time provided for it. It doesn’t need to be a lot of time on any given day. It can be a short burst.”
For high-school students, Kibbey recommends that districts continue offering opportunities for students to improve their typing speed and accuracy by building in time to practice.
“It’s a job skill,” Kibbey said. “Overall, kids are going to end up working with a computer somewhere, no matter where they work. They’re going to sign in to timesheets. They’re going to need word-processing skills. They’re going to send emails. It helps them be ready for the future, and it’s one less barrier to success as an adult.”
As someone who grew up during the gap in time when typing instruction wasn’t so regularly offered, Kibbey said she never learned how to properly type.
“Do I make the buttons work? Absolutely,” she said. “But I wish I’d had access to typing instruction.”
