Schoolhouse Review ~ Keyboarding for the Christian School

When I was in school, keyboarding wasn't taught until grade 9. As the years have passed (no I'm not saying how many!) so much has changed. 

Disclosure: I received a free copy of this product for review, all opinions are 100% my own.

While I still put a large emphasis on having neat handwriting, I do see the need for younger children to be able to type well. Our oldest daughter has always struggled with handwriting, it wasn't that she couldn't write neatly.

The issue was more about endurance. She has a very tight grip and her hand tires out quickly.  To help her, she has been typing more of her work this year. It is working very well, but the fingerpicking style was slowing her down.

So I was very excited when we were given the opportunity to review Keyboarding for the Christian School.

For my review, I was given the Large Print Elementary e-book large print edition. It is recommended for grades K to 5.

If you prefer a printed version it is also available both can be ordered from their website, Christian Keyboarding or Amazon.

There are many learn to type programs available for computers. We have used many of them in our home. While our children enjoy them, I find that they are still often looking down at the keyboard trying to find the right key.

This really slows down their typing. While my oldest daughter has been using this program, I've found that it has helped her to break that habit. I printed out our e-book and placed the copy into a binder.  This fits well on their computer desk.

Dd has to focus on the page of text in order to keep typing the letters properly.  I don't know why, but when she would type from the computer screen she would look down at her hands. This is one reason her typing speed has been improving.

The author believes that typing from a text is more beneficial to the student than typing from the screen. This quote from her website explains why.

Why choose a printable e-book versus a web-based program? Think about the things you type.  Are they readily available to copy from the screen or are they something that you are looking at on a piece of paper?  Usually you are typing something from a rough draft.  If the lessons are only available on the computer monitor; your student will not get the needed skill of transferring information from paper to the computer.  A printable e-book allows you the preference of binding the whole book or just giving your student one page at a time.  A printable e-book is portable and economical.

With the help of Miss Mabel the ladybug, the book starts off with a list of  12 things to help with your typing. A few of the tips are Sitting up straight and leaning in at the waist, body is one hand length from the keyboard.

Also that the J key should be opposite of your belly button. That is one that I really had not thought about before! My daughter wasn't sitting with the keyboard light up perfectly and because of that, she was having a hard time typing.

I liked that the lessons are kept short, this fits really well with my Charlotte Mason teaching style. 

The first lessons deal with teaching the home row on the keyboard. By lesson 6 students are already learning to type real words such as sad, dash, lash, glad, and salad.

By lesson 10 they are starting to type Bible verses.  I LOVE that I don't have to worry about what type of sentences my children are typing with this program.

Typing scriptures is just another wonderful opportunity to bring God's word to them.

By the time they have worked to lessons 30 and 31 they are starting to learn how to format text. This workbook uses directions and screenshots from Microsoft Word, that comes with many computers.

Our family uses Linux, so naturally, we don't use MS Word.  However, the directions were easy for us to use with an alternate word processor.

I really enjoy using Keyboarding for the Christian School and overall I think it's an excellent program.

The only thing that I could see being a problem would be if I was using this with a younger child. The lines of typing are long and because they quickly move into sentences a young child might have trouble with it. But I think that as long as the child is reading well the program would be a good fit.