IEP - Keyboarding goals?

Wow, I don’t have an answer to your question, but I wanted to ask the exact same question. I would also like to add the question of how the instruction should occur? They want to place my 8 year old in front of a computer and have him magically learn with no one attending to him.

Well, 12 wpm is about where my students (private secondary school for LD kids) could tell it was faster than writing, though I have read research that said as low as 6… and having watched my kiddos with fine motor issues write, I can believe that too. But like anything else, so much depends on teh individual student.

Diana Hanbury King has a good book to learn to type from — she’s one of my favorite authors for students with LDs. Her approach is a bit differnet than most — she teaches the whole alphabet, in alphabetical order, first. It’s exactly the kind of adjustment that makes a *big* difference to LD kids — having the sequence make some kind of sense already. You can get it from EPS (www.epsbooks.com) for pretty reasonable.

Read, WRite and Type is some pretty neat software to teach typing while working on letter sounds. At 8 he could probably still benefit from it, especially if he’s got any reading issues.

www.thelearningstudio.com has materials for kids with significant motor issues.

When my son was in second grade, we set a goal of 5 wpm with 50% accuracy and just kept building from there. It is really critical that this be written into the IEP and that the service provider (resource teacher, OT, etc.) and the means by which the service will be provided (i.e. one on one using XYZ typing software) are specified.

Andrea

Although my daughter did not get help from her IEP (I was ignorant at the time), we paid for keyboarding instruction. They used Mavis Beacon and in 2nd grade she increased to approximately 12 wpm. She also has an Alphasmart which has a typing lessons applet to practice with. She has continued, without keyboarding instruction, and is now about 15 - 16 wpm at the end of 3rd grade. She uses a computer in her classroom.

Sue- I tried this link (www.thelearningstudio.com ) and it did not work. Can you send it again? Thanks, Colleen

They tried that with my son at the same age, then said it “didn’t work” because he didn’t keep working with the program when they left him alone with it! :-/

FINALLY, this year, in 5th grade, we got it written into his IEP that he would be given one-on-one supervised keyboarding instruction 30 minutes 3 days a week. It SHOULD have been with the OT, but she wanted no part of it, saying she knew nothing about typing. So it ended up being an aide, who also knew nothing about typing. But at least she made sure he kept both hands on the keyboard. (which has been a big problem for him… he “forgets” his right hand when he is concentrating on something) And the program they used, “Type to Learn” was designed well enough that even without a real “instructor”, he was able to benefit from it as long as someone kept him on task.

By the end of the year, he was finally saying that it was easier to keyboard than to write. The problem until then was he had no incentive to keyboard, even though he was “allowed” to by his IEP. Even though his handwriting (actually printing, he doesn’t do cursive at all) is painfully slow, until he had enough direct keyboarding instruction, the keyboarding seemed even harder and slower to him.

Karen