My students are enthusiastic 9 and 10-year-olds who have moved from primary to upper grade, from a 20:1 class to one with 30+ students. The neighborhood has many students coming from single-family homes, some from nearby apartments, many with both parents working. Many students are "tech natives," familiar with iPads and some computer programs. Not everyone has access to technology at home, so the chances to practice keyboarding skills are not evenly distributed across the board. The bar is set higher in writing skills. Rigor, endurance, and accuracy in telling a story with skill and confidence are several tools they need in their essay toolbox. All students have Google Classroom accounts, which allow for typing assignments and writing projects, but hunt-and-peck makes for a slow input method, indeed.
While we get started with our essays the old fashioned way--on paper, new technology demands a new skill: typing quickly and accurately.
My Project
More assignments--as well as state tests--require confidence and speed on a computer keyboard, which a rigorous typing program can build in a matter of a few lessons. Most students are experienced with hunt-and-peck typing, 1-2 fingers at a time, which severely hampers their ability to convert their ideas into editable sentences and paragraphs.
A subscription to Typing Club offers customizable, high-interest typing lessons to empower our fourth graders to express their brilliant ideas and wonderful research in a readable, sharable format on paper and online.
This is a tried-and-true program which has helped my previous classes; I'd like to see the same skills developed with my 2019-20 class. This project will also benefit my teaching partner's class, which includes both 3rd and 4th graders.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Rogers and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
