Here's an interesting article:
http://www.harrison.k12.co.us/technology/best_practices/keyboarding.htmlIt says:
From the evidence available about research on keyboarding, it appears that early elementary school students can learn to keyboard. Some researchers suggest that fifth grade is the ideal time. However, the fifth grade may be too late because there may be too many bad habits already engrained. Therefore, it appears that when students start to use microcomputers to type words and sentences, they should be taught keyboarding. Bartholome and Long (1986) found that first and second graders with one-half hour of instruction three days a week could learn to type the alphabetic keys with commonly used punctuation marks at the rate of 15-30 words a minute in one semester of instruction. Psychological research on teaching typewriting also indicates that the student needs to be typing somewhere around 20-25 words a minute to have the keyboarding response patterns somewhat automated. The danger also lies in the fact that many people believe that to provide keyboarding instruction at a singular grade level is enough. Typewriting is like any other skill. The more you work on the skill the better you become at the skill, and, if you don't use the skill, you may lose the skill. Thus, I recommend that there be some continual emphasis on keyboarding throughout the elementary school and junior high school years. My recommendation is indicated in the following keyboarding scope and sequence. Of course, variations can be accommodated. The main idea is to spend some time on keyboarding as a student progresses. As a student gets to the junior high/high school level, he/she should then be working on higher speeds, and, of course, people who continue to work on the keyboarding in the high school level are people who want to use their keyboarding skills for high level word processing and other inputs. Keyboarding emphases at various grade levels are stated in the Keyboarding Scope and Sequence chart on the next page. Another guide for keyboarding instruction is a statement produced by the Policies Commission for Business and Economic Education. (1984) The Policies Commission is a consortium of people represented by many national business teacher organizations. The Policies Commission states that students should be introduced to keyboarding at the elementary school level and continue their skills in middle/junior high school and other levels of education. The Policies Commission believes that the following objectives are appropriate for an elementary school keyboarding course of 25-45 hours of instruction.
I also suggest any activities,such as playing musical instruments and art, that strengthen fine motor. Use of fingers independently from eachother seems to be helpful.
Good luck,
Grinity
