When and How Should Keyboarding be Taught in Elementary School?
http://ci.coe.uni.edu/facstaff/zeitz/web/general/WhenHowKeyboardingSmith.pdf
This was a study done by the University of North Carolina in 2002 about when elementary students should begin to learn keyboarding skills and how they should learn them. They stressed the importance of teaching students good form early so that they do not develop the habit of searching and pecking and having to learn the skill all over again. However, the elementary school teachers seem to wonder where in their already busy curriculum they are going to teach keyboarding. Some of the conclusions that were made from this study were that 3rd grade seems to be the best time to formally introduce students to keyboarding, but allowing students to experiment in 1st and 2nd grades. They also say to set aside time every week as you would for handwriting and to make sure that the students are hitting the keys with the correct fingers.
Keyboarding is a skill that all people eventually develop. From online chatting or writing papers for classes, everyone eventually will learn how to keyboard, it seems as natural as writing now a days. The important thing seems not to get elementary students 100% proficient in keyboarding, but making sure that they are doing it properly from a young age to avoid bad habits and the student having to relearn how to type on a standard keyboard.
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