You are so right Darla.  Keyboarding, once learned fluently puts less 
demand on motor memory of letter formation for older students and 
adults who have not mastered fluent handwriting.  Lack of fluent 
handwriting does in turn interfere with writing sentences, paragraphs 
and discourse.  Working memory issues also interfere with production of 
sentences, so other interventions are required to help ease the task 
there.  When keyboarding is used as an accommodation, it needs to be 
learned fluently, or the same problems will persist with generation of 
greater blocks of text.

I begin teaching keyboarding skills to students around grade four or 
five.  Sometimes they have already been "hunting and pecking" because 
they are using computers as such a young age.  I use Diana Hansbury 
King's method of teaching the letter positions by typing the alphabet 
in order.  This has the advantage of students using a "sequence 
pattern" they already know rather than learning the traditional "asdf" 
"jkl;"( more demand on s-t and working memory) .  This program is not a 
computer program, but an "old fashioned type and say " program.  Once 
the students know where all the letters are and are using the correct 
fingers to access them, they can practice on any of the "typing tutors" 
that appeal to the age group.  I find the students learn very quickly 
using this.  This program consists of a single booklet and  can be 
purchased through Educators' Publishing Services,  www.epsbooks.com.  I 
find it also has the added value of reinforcing alphabet sequences 
needed for dictionary skills.


On Dec 20, 2006, at 11:43 AM, Darla Hatton wrote:


> Keyboarding will not improve reading skills.  It will not remediate 

> writing skills.  It can act as an accommodation with the use of a 

> spell checker, word prediction software, and/or text to speach 

> software to help create, edit and review writing for content and 

> accuracy.

>  

> There are several software programs out there that are of good 

> quality.  It is important to teach persons to type correctly from the 

> start.  As with any aquired skill, it is much easier to learn 

> correctly the first time around rather than try to change old habits 

> and relearn a skill.  Persons with LD have enough to remediate without 

> having to add keyboarding to their list.  Ideally, it is preferrable 

> to introduced proper instruction when a person is provided access to a 

> keyboard.  Many of the commercially available typing software programs 

> make learing to type like a game, which makes it fun to 

> learn.----------------------------------------------------

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