The Typing Coach

It's been many years since we've reviewed a typing program. Jake, my oldest child, was only 6 years old at the time. He had been excited to learn to type quickly, but when his little hands struggled to reach the keys and stay in the proper positions, he became discouraged. Now that he's 11, I figured it was time to try again. His hands are much larger and his fingers are stronger. He's also using the computer more now and is more familiar with the letter placement on the keyboard. He's realizing how long it takes to research his interests on the internet when he's hunting and pecking for the letters. He was excited to use The Typing Coach Online Typing Course to master his typing skills.

The Typing Coach is different from most of the typing courses that are offered. Instead of focusing on games and other methods that cause the students to depend on looking at the monitor or keyboard, The Typing Coach quickly weans them from that crutch and truly teaches them to type. This self-paced audio course was developed by a veteran typing teacher  The systematic lessons are designed to help the student type faster, more efficiently, and with fewer, if any, errors by using audio, video, and written instructions.

Once you login to The Typing Coach, it's very easy to follow the lessons:

• Course Introduction
• Slower Paced Lessons
• Practice & Testing Center
• Before and After Snapshot
• Lesson 1 - Having Good Posture
• Lesson 2 - Hone Row
• Lesson 3 - Top Row
• Lesson 4 - Bottom Row
• Lesson 5 - Shift Keys
• Lesson 6 - Typing Practices
• Lesson 7 - Number Row
• Serious Practicing
• The Final Assessment
• Conclusion
• Course Evaluation and Feedback

When you click on your current lesson, the required information opens including a brief set of instructions, an audio clip, the accompanying pages of the printed Student Packet, and additional links and documents.Each step is numbered and easy to follow.

David Kimball, The Typing Coach, wrote the instructions in a conversational style with a bit of humor tossed in. He's encouraging and understanding. Though he stresses that he requires no errors, he explains that he doesn't expect perfection. In other words, you're going to make mistakes, but you're not allowed to use the backspace to delete letters. If you make an error, you simply retype that section, no matter how many tries it takes. Typing it correctly without fixing errors helps to truly master the skill, instead of forming bad habits that need to be fixed.

Jake is doing very well with this course. The lessons are designed to be completed at the rate of one a week for ten weeks. He's not quite that far into the program just yet as we spent two weeks away from home for vacation, but he's able to consistently type the home row and top row correctly while keeping proper position and he's working toward mastering the bottom row, as well. He's got that perfectionist trait, just like his mother, so it's been fun to watch him learn to type with the laptop monitor closed down some so he can't see the keyboard as he types from the Student Packet. He keeps at it until there are no errors. I've even caught him typing random thoughts just because after his lessons are over. Now that he's getting better at typing, he's starting to enjoy it more.

By the end of the course, the  student should be typing 10 words a minute and quickly improve to 45 words a minute with practice. I'm already impressed with the precision in which my son is typing the given text and am excited to watch him improve as he finishes the The Typing Coach Online Typing Course.


You can connect with The Typing Coach on Twitter.


You can read more reviews of this program on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.