"My emphasis is on proper form not speed,"

My students are expected to have their hands on home row keys, to use the proper finger for each letter, to have their wrists flat and their thumbs on the space bar. And they are expected to know where the keys are without looking.

"I set a goal of three words per minute for third graders and around seven for fourth and fifth graders," said Patterson. "I lower it or raise it depending on the success of the individual student.

I don't want to frustrate students by raising the speed beyond what they can manage, forcing them to have to look at the keys in order to be successful."

"My emphasis is not on speed,

"Speed is not what is most important. Most important is correct technique. With correct keying, speed will come automatically with time and use. Accuracy will come automatically by letting up on the speed. Emphasize correct technique only at these ages."

"When we begin to study a physical skill, we must concentrate upon it," Lauren Eve Pomerantz, programs coordinator at the California Space & Science Center, told Education World. "Then the information is stored in the neocortex, the center of our conscious thought. As we perfect our skill through physical drill, whether it be piano scales or ballet barre exercises or DeNealian drill sheets or karate katas, the information is moved into deeper areas of the brain that bypass conscious thought. "The true measure of the typist or keyboardist is that he or she no longer thinks, 'I must press my fourth finger on my left hand without moving up or down,' but thinks 's' and the finger responds automatically," Pomerantz added.

"In typing, first you learn where the keys are and how to stroke firmly and rhythmically," Pomerantz continued. "Then you learn to combine letters into words. Along the way, you learn certain common patterns. Not very long after beginning, when kids are still thinking about the letters that make up each word, they can type such words as the and and because drills make them repeat those commonly used sequences.

"Initially, students get much of the psychomotor feedback they need --feedback that they have struck the correct keys -- as they watch their monitors," Carla Cruzan said. "However, in the very beginning stages, they also need to occasionally look back and forth to their keyboards to develop their eye-hand coordination. When students switch to copying text off a printed page -- if it is introduced too early -- they struggle to keep their eyes on the text, and they lose this important feedback. Switching their eyes constantly between text and keyboard, they also lose their place in the text and numerous errors creep in. The same thing happens when they compose straight to the monitor. This frustrates the natural eye-hand coordination process of learning the keys. "The initial keyboard learning is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students to look at the keyboard as needed," Cruzan added. "Students need to learn to key at their own pace or the developmental process will be frustrated. Ignore all errors at this time -- except for errors in technique. Let your students know that their typing will always contain some errors. What will change, with time, is the type of errors they will make."