A life-changing skill

There are many different approaches and coping strategies individuals can adopt but the simple and fundamental skill of touch typing can produce results quickly, easily, within weeks and can be life-changing. It can help address many of the above challenges and early acquisition will familiarise users with the keyboard, allowing them to fully appreciate the tools available to them through touch typing and using a computer.

What is touch typing?

Touch typing is typing using all your fingers and thumbs, without looking down at the keys on the keyboard.

Why would touch typing help?

Touch typing offers a new medium for getting thoughts on to paper. Although there are other options available, such as dictation (using a scribe) or voice recognition software, these options can be very time consuming and difficult to master, especially for individuals with dyslexia who often struggle with short term memory.

Frees the conscious mind

Touch typing, as opposed to writing, dictation and voice recognition software uses a different process in the brain.

When you learn to touch type using all your fingers and thumbs, with practice, the physical and conscious skill is automatised and moves to your subconscious. (It’s the same as learning to play a musical instrument.) It reduces mental load and frees your conscious mind to concentrate on more important tasks such as planning, composing, processing, proof-reading and editing (often problem areas). It makes life a lot easier and it’s an area where individuals with dyslexia can excel.

Spellings

Touch typing also offers a completely different and very clever way of teaching spelling. With the repetition of touch typing words, spellings are ingrained into ‘muscle memory’ and simply become a series of finger movements and patterns on a keyboard. The stress of trying to remember how to spell a word is eradicated. Individuals simply think the word and their fingers automatically type it (a phrase known as think type). They learn to recognise words by sight, saving the decoding process which often causes difficulty.

Does not overload the working memory

Subconscious touch typing and producing work on a computer also allows individuals to work at their own pace and in a non-linear fashion, where they can capture their thoughts first and structure them later.

Other benefits:

The need for neat handwriting is no longer a priority

Errors can be easily edited/corrected without messy crossings out, resulting in neat and presentable work

Spell checkers highlight mistakes and offer alternatives

Reassurance with the above automatically boosts confidence - promoting experimentation with vocabulary and spelling and again, allows concentration to be focused on content

Quick and accurate typing can reduce the amount of time spent on a piece of work and often increases the amount of work produced

Physical dexterity is enhanced, helping handwriting skills