Keyboarding: Why Children Were Not Taught to Type

"Hi, this is Linda Lewis on behalf of Expert Village.com. Check out my website at www.keytime.com. Why weren’t children taught how to type years ago? There are many reasons why children were not taught how to type and it is very evident with computers that 4 and 5 year olds are able to type 15 and 20 words a minute. Years ago if you remember in pictures that the old typewriters required having you push down each finger separately and it took a lot of muscle to actually move those. Adults were the ones that were only taught how to type because physically this child was not able to do it with the little strength they had in their fingers. I found that when I was teaching school that I had a 4th grade class that I was trying to set up the computer lab and found a couple of old typewriters that I thought since I taught them how to type very quickly that they could practice on typewriters. I had taught them on templates in the classroom and I sent them to the typewriters in the back of the room and it did not take more than 10 minutes before they would come up with their hands with this long black ribbon from the typewriter all over them and you could tell they just didn’t know mechanically how to work the old typewriter. So, there was no way that they would even let them get near the old typewriters but there is no reason why young children as soon as they are introduced to technology are not taught the proper ways of keyboarding and they can learn very quickly."