Placing pressure on the younger student to attain speed will do them a disservice. Monitor the student and watch them closely and model correct form for them. It is helpful to cover the keys so the student can’t look. It is important for the student to learn the position of the keys and to avoid visually searching for the various letters, numbers, and symbols. Collaborate with the classroom teacher and request that the student is encouraged to use the correct positioning when typing throughout the day to support the instruction.
Encourage the student to sit up straight with their feet flat on the floor, elbows close to their body, wrists straight, and forearms level. Positioning is important when working on keyboarding skills. The rule of least amount of adaptations should be followed when determining what adaptations should be taught and used. My philosophy is that it is important to begin instruction at this young age to avoid the development of bad habits as well as to get a head start on teaching access to digital print and to provide the student with a means to produce print that is legible to themselves and others.Ī computer system with the appropriate adaptations (screen enlargement or screen reader) is an ideal tool for a student with a visual impairment to use to gain access to information and produce written communication. That being said, typing on a non-adapted keyboard and utilizing internal magnification will provide the student with the ability to type on any keyboard across environments.
Although a point can be made that young children have not physically developed enough to learn to type, if they are using computers in pre-K and kindergarten classes, they will develop bad habits which will be hard to break. Waiting until the student is in upper elementary grades or middle school to teach keyboarding is too late as most students will have developed bad keyboarding habits by that time. Keyboarding instruction used to be introduced when students were older, but young children are being introduced to the computer earlier and earlier.