What your student really needs before starting school this year
Imagine College Coaching It is still fresh on my mind. I struggled. I can not lie. It took weeks and weeks of practice to get my fingers to follow my brain’s lead. Once I got the letters down, it was time to learn the numbers. *!(#@*)4 And yet, this one semester of frustration and investment has produced a mighty return ( no pun intended) for the last 20 years.
I have the amazing privilege of working with teens everyday. I love them to pieces. I love everything about the way they think, make decisions, struggle to stay focused, laugh at awkward times etc …. I love every last thing about them…… EXCEPT…… their absolute inability to type !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It makes me crazy to watch them peck at their keyboards. Our teens simply have not been taught to type. Less than one in ten are proficient at typing. Parents, as much as we are laughed at regarding our “technology gap”, this is truly one skill where we have an advantage :)
I know what your thinking, of course your teen can type. What you really mean, is that your teen can text! It is not the same thing. I have no idea why they can spend literally thousands of hours texting and can’t type a single sentence. Simply mind boggling.
I tell my children as well as all my students they are “bursting with potential, every square inch of them!” I know this to be true. I see the potential in each set of eyes I meet. So, here is the deal …. I KNOW they can type. I just know it! They only need a bit of motivation (and one of many online typing courses) from us more experienced typists. ( Yes, even if you only took 1 short semester of typing, you are now considered experienced!)
So, while you are preparing for a new year to begin, ….. buying the school supplies, the new sneakers, the dorm room decor, the crayons etc….. one of the greatest things you can do to equip them with the needed tools this year is teach them to type. Can you imagine the hours this will save them? Those precious hours could be used to actually study instead of peck on the keyboard. The thought of it makes me want to do cartwheels.
I’m including some online typing apps and links. Some are free, some are not. I have no affiliation to any of them but I am considering them for my own kids and wanted to share with you.
Moral of this story, if you have kids from Kindergarten to College, one of the greatest things they need for school this year is the gift of typing :) And just think, they wont even need white out tape. That will just be our little secret :)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/key...
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gho...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z3c6tfr
http://www.typing-lessons.org/