Handwriting Versus Typing

Please bear with me a little - these are just my thoughts at the moment and some food for thought...

I have taught many children in my almost 9 years as a teacher and I often come across children who find writing physically difficult. They complain that their hand hurts or that it takes too long. Often in my experience I have found that these children don't lack the ideas or creativity to write amazing stories however the ideas they do have come thick and fast and the pencil just can not keep up. By the time the first word is written down on paper - the story is finished inside their head and it just seems mundane to go back and write the words down. It is true that other tools such as mind mapping or voice recording are other options to capture these children's writing however is there a place for teaching young children to touch type?  

The skills that have helped me not only in my own university schooling but in my career as a teacher have been the skills learnt during the I.T lessons at college. We learnt how to use Word, Powerpoint and Excel as well as how to touch type and even a little bit of game making. Of course this was in the early stages of computers being in schools however these skills have served me well so far in life. I wonder what my parents thought at the time of me being in the I.T class. Did they think typing skills, using Microsoft programmes or game making would have any impact on my future success? Or did they think it was just a fun and light option to take? It is a fact that we are teaching students now for jobs that may not even be invented yet. I think it is not the actual tool but the thought process behind it that is important. Although I learnt to use Word, Powerpoint and Excel I have been able to transfer that learning into using other programmes that came out later on. 

So this brings me to reflect on teaching children skills such as touch typing in today's world. Is handwriting important? Does there need to be a balance? We need to keep in mind that our students still live in a world where they still sit exams in college where they have to write essays and answer questions. This handwriting needs to be legible in order to get marks but does this mean we push these children to write rows and rows of certain letters in order to get the formation right by the time they get to Year 4? Another thought is that without touch typing training, students could be in the same boat as slow handwriting because they will be just as slow with trying to find the keys to type the words.

I have often had these questions in previous years of teaching but because my class is working so heavily with Google Apps this year, I feel that I will be able to measure the impact of teaching touch typing a lot easier. Therefore I have introduced my children to Dance Mat Typing on-line as a starting point. Each child has been given a particular day where instead of doing SSR for 10 minutes after morning tea and lunch time - they go onto the typing programme and practice their typing skills. I will be interested to see how quickly this increases my children's speed at typing and I am also interested in seeing the flow on effect of its assistance with writing stories in written language. Perhaps I could test students on how many words they can hand write in a minute and then compare that to how many words they can type in the same amount of time? And maybe I need to look into signing my students up for a free on-line typing programme where they log in and it records their results?

The more I read about this topic, the more I learn that it is around the Year 4 age that children can cope with learning to touch type - with both co-ordination and hand span. I look forward to seeing what will come of this over the last few weeks of Term 1. I will update you with reflections as I go.