K-8 Keyboard Curriculum–Main

In this book, The Essential Guide to Teaching Keyboarding in 45 Minutes a Week: a K-8 Curriculum, I’ll share a unique keyboarding curriculum for K-8 that I’ve seen work on thousands of students, a curriculum that can be taught in 45 minutes a week–15 minutes in class and 30 minutes at home. Drill, games, quizzes–kids love it.

You may think it impossible to find an effective keyboard curriculum for the skimpy forty-five minutes a week you can devote to keyboarding. You teach what you can, but it always seems to be the same lessons—hands on home row, good posture, eyes on copy. You wonder if it’s making a difference, or if it matters.

Yes, it does and there is a way. It requires a plan, faithfully executed, with your eye relentlessly on the goal, but if you commit, it works.

The book includes:

• A summary of the literature
• Answers to questions like ‘Can youngers learn to keyboard—and should they?’
• Importance of the teacher
  

The K-8 curriculum includes a lot more variety than keyboard exercises on installed software. Here’s a rundown of pieces used:

• Keyboarding software (yes, you do need repetition)
• Online keyboarding websites
• Age-appropriate use of hand covers
• Quarterly speed/accuracy quizzes
• Quarterly blank keyboarding quizzes
• Monthly homework
• Wall charts to support learning and display evidence of success
• Grading based on student improvement, not conformity to class norms
• A Scope and Sequence of keyboarding skills by grade

You’ll learn practical strategies on how to blend these pieces, each added at the right time, to teach the keyboarding skills required for today’s classroom. Each lesson includes:

• Overview
• Objectives and steps
• Best Practices
• Extensions
• Trouble-shooting
• Where to get help

How do I pick between Essential Guide to Keyboarding and Ultimate Guide?

• The Ultimate Guide:
  • is Common Core compliant
  • includes more detail/images/how-tos on each activity than the Essential Guide.
  • expanded detail makes it perfect when keyboarding is taught across grade-level classes, often by teachers without a background in teaching keyboarding
  • is aligned with new K-8 Student Workbooks
  • includes enriched assessments (to reflect changes since the 2012 publication date of the Essential Guide)
  • includes a detailed timeline of what to introduce when, by week and/or month
  • includes a slightly-expanded research section
  • responds to reader requests since the Essential Guide’s 2012 publication (which is why it’s over three times as long!)
  • can be enriched with student workbooks and videos
  • can be student-directed when student workbooks and videos are used
• The Essential Guide
  • is more compact (less than a third the size of the Ultimate Guide)
  • covers all essential keyboarding material in one book rather than two, and as such, is more portable and affordable
  • is available in print or digital (Ultimate Guide: K-5 is available in both formats, but the Middle School volume is only available in digital)
  • is perfect for teachers looking for a curriculum map of activities more than how to do them
  • has no associated workbooks or videos
  • well suited when keyboarding is taught by one teacher