Free Typing Curriculum for Schools: Build Keyboarding Skills

This post brought to you in partnership with Taito Learning.

After working with multiple age groups of students, I have realized that the importance of typing skills in today’s digital world cannot be stressed enough! Incorporating typing curriculum in schools is a must in this generation of video game controllers and tablets!

Assuming that kids know how to type simply because we have so much technology surrounding us couldn’t be further from the truth! Taito Learning not only offers a free typing curriculum but they also offer an additional Digital Citizenship curriculum as well!

Practicing keyboarding skills have come a long way from when we were kids! Taito Learning’s Typetastic curriculum makes practicing typing fun and gamified for students! Typetastic helps build speed, accuracy and confidence in a fun way – and if your students don’t believe you just tell them you are helping them get faster at PC gaming!

There are over 700 games and activities ranging for students from Kindergarten through 12th grade that are accessible for FREE. The games and activities are brightly animated, color coordinated, and progress in speed and difficulty appropriately regardless of the age of your students.

Whether you are using Typetastic’s free version as a supplement at home or in your classroom, or you are using their paid School Version with a fully customizable dashboard and tracking capabilities – your students will love it! (Note – the free version allows you to access all of the curriculum but does not save your progress or allow any type of tracking tools.)

The BEST Features about Typetastic’s School Version:

• No ads!
• Full customizable teacher dashboard
• Customizable curriculum settings (lock and unlock lessons)
• Manage users, monitor and track student progress in real time
• Print reports
• Create typing tests
• Modify “PASS” Limits on typing tests
• COPPA Compliant (no personal data collected from the students)
• Import Data with CSV Files or Google Classroom or sync through Clever
• Teacher Guide & Support Resources

A Peek into the Typetastic Curriculum for Schools:

As you can see viewing the Student Dashboard above, the typing curriculum offers short lessons that can easily be encouraged during free time or center rotation times. If you are using the School Version you will have a Teacher Dashboard, and a separate Student Dashboard.

You can create different classroom pods with different students which can be added manually or imported via CSV, Google Classroom or synced with Clever.

Below you can see the teacher dashboard for where you can view class reports, individual students tracking data and activity, test results, unlock and lock typing practice and tests and more.

I created three separate classrooms in my Teacher Dashboard in Typetastic, one for Kindergarten, 4th grade, and 10th grade. The content for each grade band is different and appropriate for the age group.

Below you can see a more detailed image for the typing tests and the results that are given. Students will be automatically logged out of their accounts after 50 minutes of inactivity.

Typing Practice Tests Examples and Results:

Above you can see examples of a timed typing test for both 4th grade and 10th grade. The teacher can choose the passing grade required for the typing test, and the content material can be customized from the dashboard.

As you can see in the results section it will list the student’s typing accuracy, their speed, and the pass limit for both the accuracy and the WPM (Words Per Minute). It does allow a student to try multiple times whether or not they pass.

Benefits Beyond the Keyboard

Learning how to type is far more than just being speedy or accurate when using a computer! A good typing curriculum like Typetastic helps:

• strengthen letter recognition
• strengthen coordination skills
• improve writing and communication skills
• boost the confidence of the learner
• prepares students for future productivity in school and their future careers

Tips for making the most of the typing lessons.

You can choose to use Taito Learning’s TypeTastic curriculum as an individual lesson or as a “reward” to work on after other work is completed. Since the typing curriculum is fun and gamified, students are excited to be given the time to work on their curriculum!

The program does not require any additional downloads or extensions which are typically restricted in many school districts. It also works on iPads (iOS16 or newer) and Android tablets (Android 13 or newer) – but you will need a keyboard for tablet use.

Click HERE to Sign Up for Typetastic for FREE

You can view TypeTastic Keyboarding Curriculum Common Core standards here.

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