Day 6

Hopefully, all  was not lost over the weekend.  So, today we review proper keyboarding position with our body again.  And, we do a large amount of work on homerow.

The program that we use in Keyboarding is called Applied Microtype.  We are using version 3.0.  It is NOT a program that you can download at home; unfortunately.  The company only sells to schools.  It is around this time that students and parents will ask if there is something that the students can practice at home.  For now, I do not wish for your student to practice outside of class.  Too often they will pick up their bad habits and strike keys with two fingers while looking all the time at the keyboard.  Next week, I will post some websites I think are useful for them to use; but, first we have to get our technique down.

The reaches to the letters 'h' and 'e' were taught today.  It is very important that the student learn to reach off of homerow and immediately return to homerow.  We talked a lot about not letting the finger that leaves homerow to hover over that new letter; but, to snap that homerow finger right back to homerow after striking the other key.  Also, it is very important that they recognize that each letter has a correct finger to strike it.  They cannot make up their own fingering.  'J' strikes 'h' and that is the only finger that strikes 'h'; no other finger will work.