Mrs. Wrobel's KeyboardingCourse

   Hello everyone! So, you want to give yourselves a gift, a skill that will last you a lifetime? Below is my entire keyboarding course. Just follow the assignments EXACTLY as I tell you to, and, in a mere few days (three days to be exact,) you will learn the keyboard. Yes, I said three days. Furthermore, if you practice as directed for one week, you will develop muscle memory. That means you will be typing with the right fingers and WITHOUT looking at those fingers! 

If you are already proficient (that means you are using the correct fingers without looking at the keyboard and you are typing at 21 words per minute or better,) practicing just a few minutes a day will help you to type faster.

*Things to remember:

*Other things to remember:

*If you are typing a letter with your left hand, you use your right pinkie (little finger) on the right shift key. If you are typing a letter with your right hand, you use your left pinkie on the left shift key. The procedure is to hold down the shift key, snappy tap the key that you want to capitalize, and return both fingers to the home keys immediately. 

*Mrs. Wrobel says, "No one can possibly focus on "a a a a" etc. for more than ten minutes. Take a break. Eat a snack. Go out and play for a half hour. Wash the kitchen floor. Empty the dishwasher. There are a lot of fun things to do between keyboarding sessions."

Are you ready to train those fingers? If you are serious about learning how to keyboard, you will succeed.

The home row is the middle row of letters and your fingers should be on "a s d f   j k l ; " your left baby finger on the "a" and your right baby finger on the ";" which is called a semicolon.

click on picture below
for an adorable, printable,
color-coded keyboard

    You may feel bumps under the "f" and "j" fingers. Look for the bumps. Your fingers will get used to homing in on these very quickly.

Daily Homework Assignments

Day 1: Home row - place a paper keyboard at eye level (on your monitor if you wish) and with your fingers curved on the home row strike the "a" with your left baby finger. Sending all your thoughts to that finger, say the letter as you tap it, S L O W L Y, four or five times. Do not rush. Wait 2 or 3 seconds between taps.  Your goal is muscle memory, not skinny fingers. The key is to focus as you strike and say the letter. After you tap each letter four or five times, use your left or right thumb to tap the space bar, saying "Space," as you tap it.

Follow the same routine with all the keys on home row. When you get to the "g," tap it with your left forefinger (pointy finger) and immediately return to home base which is the "f" key. Similarly, use your right pointy finger to quickly reach left and tap the "h," immediately returning to the home key which is the "j."

Put the timer on, or ask your mom, dad, sister, brother, cat, dog to tell you when ten minutes is up. When you have trained those fingers for ten minutes, you may type words using only the home row keys. Click here for some examples.

Day 2: Top row of letters: Are you ready? Do you have proper keyboarding posture? Are your fingers curved and based on the home keys? Practice taking your hands off the keyboard and putting your fingers on the home keys without looking. Now tap your little fingers (one at a time, of course) and see if the  "a" and the ";" appear on your screen. You can do this! 

Now on to lesson 2: reach up and to the left with your left little finger and say "qa" as you snappy tap the "q" and return quickly to the home row and snappy tap the "a." Do this four or five times S L O W L Y, focusing on each finger and saying the letter as you tap: "q [focus, wait 2 seconds - say Mississippi if you have to slow yourself down, but do slow down] a [focus, wait 2 seconds.]" Now use either thumb and tap the space bar. You will follow this pattern across the keyboard from left to right and back again from right to left. ws" as you snappy tap the "w" and "s" saying each letter and focusing on each finger as you strike the keys all the way to "p" ";" and then back right to left until you return to "w" "s." Put the timer on, or ask someone to tell you when ten minutes is up. Go back and forth on the keyboard SLOWLY focusing on each finger as it taps the key. When ten minutes is up, you may practice words using the keys that your fingers know. Click here, or make up your own words using only letters from the top and middle rows. 

Day 3: Bottom row of letters: Are you ready? Do you have proper keyboarding posture? Are your fingers curved and based on the home keys? Practice taking your hands off the keyboard and putting your fingers on the home keys without looking. Now tap your little fingers (one at a time, of course) and see if the  "a" and the ";" appear on your screen. Is it getting easier to find home row without looking? It should be. 

This is the last day. Ready? Place the paper keyboard at eye level, check your posture, hand position, finger positions and reach down and to the right with your left little finger and tap the "z." Say "z," wait 2 seconds, immediately return to the "a" which you then tap and say "a." Are the heels of your hands slightly off the keyboard? They should be. Be strict with yourself about posture, finger placement, etc. Continue across the keyboard from left to right SLOWLY and focusing on each finger as you tap and say the letter. You know the drill by now. When you have trained those fingers for ten minutes, you may type words using all the letters. Click here for some high-frequency words that will help you build speed.

Day 4: You did it. Take your right hand if you are right handed, your left hand if you are left-handed and pat yourself on the back. You are one disciplined student. Tell me who you are so I can congratulate you in person. You have completed the muscle-memory training portion of Mrs. Wrobel's keyboarding course. If you have done everything as directed, you are now ready for speed acquisition. This is the easy part. Like playing the piano, guitar, trumpet, etc., all it takes is consistent practice. Practice all those other things, too, like posture, finger placement, shift key to capitalize letters, pinky on the return key only for paragraphing, etc.

There is a 180 degree shift in focus now. At this point, if you have focused, focused, focused on each finger as directed, you are ready to ... STOP THINKING. Yes, you heard me correctly. You've trained those fingers well. Now let them fly. Don't think. Just look at the words below (type them on a separate sheet in a larger font if that helps you) and let your fingers do the flying. So you make a mistake here and there. So what? There are no penalties for trying. Oh, and do not correct your errors. That only slows you down. If you find that you are making the same mistakes, go back and retrain the finger(s) that need retraining. You know how to do that by now. Click here for high frequency phrases and "the" sentence that has all the letters of the alphabet. 

Day 1 words: all, fall, hall, dad, glad, lad, sad, had, lass, glass, has, as 

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Day 2: Good job! You are 2/3 of the way there. Keep up the good work. Here are day 2 words and high-frequency phrases: the, they, there, here, where, you, he, she, it, is, are, was, were, there are, there is, they are, he is, she is, it is, quiet, was, he was, she was, they were. 

Now practice typing capital letters using opposite pinkies to hold down the shift key, then tap the letter you wish to capitalize. Remember to do this process in that exact order: hold down the shift key first. Then tap the letter and return both fingers to home row. You need to build muscle strength with those pinkies as well as muscle memory. I'll bet you don't use your little fingers alone to do much else other than type.

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Day 3: Yahoooooooo! 

Okay, here are some more high-frequency words and phrases that will help you achieve 21 words and better. All it takes is practice from here on. You can achieve the minimum speed at which you have trained those fingers forever in only one week. Yes, I said one week. I have had third graders go from zero to 32 and 38 words per minute in one week. Now, granted I did bribe them, but you can do the same. Bribe yourself with something you like (and have parental permission) to do. Clean out the garage, vacuum your closet, polish the dining room furniture ... if that makes you happy.

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Day 4: Practice high-frequency phrases from the previous days' assignments and then practice the following sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Be sure that you are typing the "c" with your left middle finger, the "b" with your left pointy finger, the period with your right "l" finger. These are the keys that can cost you time in retraining. Train them properly the first time. You are the boss! Also, do not return at the end of each sentence. Just let the word processing program do its thing. It will take you to the next line when you have reached the limit. This is called "wrapping" and it is the beauty of word processing. You only tap the return key (practice this, too) with your right pinky when you wish to start a new paragraph.

After you practice the above, have someone time you for one minute as you type, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." Type this same sentence over and over until your timer calls stop. Do this on the fourth day as a basis for beating your own time. Type the capital "T" and the "." Then space once, only once and do it again WITHOUT stopping to correct any errors. After time is called, leave your cursor at the end of your work, put your finger over the delete key, and start reading what you have typed, deleting one space or letter for each error from the END of your work. Read the last sentence again and contact me if you do not understand. When you have finished deleting a space or letter for each error, count the number of times you typed the sentence. Each sentence equals nine words per minute. Five letters and spaces equal a word. Do not stress if you are typing 10 or 12 words per minute. Practice will quickly improve your speed. In fact, I do not expect anyone to be typing faster than 10 words per minute on the fourth day. Every day of practice (three times - only ten minutes) from here on will bring you speed. Okay, you may stretch that to fifteen minutes at a time, but no more. Good luck and best wishes. That is my entire keyboarding course, and it works if you do it as directed. Oh yes, there are some other little tricks up my sleeve, some disco dancing, some singing, mnemonics to help you achieve your goal of 21 words per minute and better. I look forward to seeing you and working with you in a few weeks. Mrs. Wrobel

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