KSena's Journal

When I was in high school in the early 1980s, a semester of typing was a pre-requisite for taking computer programming, so a lot of kids took typing who wouldn't have otherwise. At that point, every single typo required the use of an eraser, so making mistakes really cut down one's speed, and uncorrected typos were subtracted from one's speed score anyway. Typing that way, I don't think I ever got past 35 wpm, but using a computer is different because of the ease of correction.

My daughter's elementary school tries, in a half-hearted way, to teach the kids how to touch type, but they get maybe ten minutes a week of that and not necessarily every week. It's taught as part of their weekly library time, but so is the use of an assortment of computer programs and resources. The skill is more useful now than it was when I was her age, but it's harder to find it taught.