Keyboarding Skills
I have been using Typing.com for most of my classes for several years. I STRONGLY encourage students to practice outside of school as the time available in school is not enough to develop skills. If students practice at home it is CRITICAL that they cover the keyboard (a piece of paper, a box top (with the front cut out for hands to slide under, a wash cloth--commercially available: speed skins, typing trainer) and that they use home position and the correct fingers for the correct keys. Touch typing/keyboarding is about training the fingers to find letters on their own, without having to look to find them, keeping the other 9 fingers in their home positions while one is typing is just as important. If they log in the site will track their progress and when they return to school, they can pick up where they left off. The site will generate reports and statistics and track their progress. There are ads on the site but rarely I have seen anything questionable.
Most students can go to typing.com and log in using google (see here for instructions on that if necessary) there are some legacy accounts (students SHOULD know this) as follows:
first name, last initial, school code and class number (the year they will be in eighth grade)
example: Micky Mouse, 4th grader at ASA; mickeymasa20
School code: All Saints Academy= asa, Tri Unity Christian=tuc, Rockford Christian=rcs
Grade codes are as follows;
code-grade
20-8
21-7
22-6
23-5
24-4
25-3
26 2
Passwords are the school code followed by the digits 12345.
All Saints Academy; asa12345
Tri Unity Christian: tuc12345
Rockford Christian; rcs12345
Grand Rapids Public Schools