The young people of our world have been described as “digital natives” because computers and the internet have been around their entire lives. So it might surprise you to hear that many of the high schoolers I work with don’t know how to type.
They get by via finger typing: punching each letter with their index fingers while looking at the keyboard. It’s a survival technique, akin to counting on your fingers to perform addition. And it’s terribly inefficient compared to real typing.
That inefficiency slows them down whenever they have to type an assignment. It makes the homework they already don’t like more tedious. And whenever something you don’t want to do is more difficult to do, the odds of procrastination go up. Essays are difficult enough to write; the struggle to type shouldn’t be an additional obstacle.
And much like having not memorized your multiplication facts, being unable to type is a constant source of frustration for these students. For some, it produces a feeling of inadequacy. So we owe it to kids to teach them how to type. It will increase their sense of self-efficacy and make their lives easier as students and as adults.
The ideal time to do this is during elementary school, before finger-typing has become a habit, but it’s never too late. There are numerous free, gamified learn-to-type websites. (Typing Club is a popular option.) Summer is an excellent time to start, but efforts should be maintained year-round until the skill is mastered.
Older students are more likely to resist being asked to learn to type. They’ll argue that they’re getting by just fine with finger typing. Indeed, switching to real typing as a high schooler would temporarily slow you down because you’ve practiced finger typing for so long. Making the switch is an investment in your future. It’s one of those classic things you’ll feel a great deal of resistance to, but which you certainly won’t regret doing.
If you’re a parent wondering how you could possibly motivate your teenager to practice typing this summer, check out our class: Motivation and Behavior Change: How to Really Motivate Teenagers.
Chris Loper has been working as a tutor and academic coach since 2014, racking up over 13,000 hours of experience supporting students.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the co-creator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
Chris writes the popular self-improvement blog Becoming Better, where he also offers habit coaching, helping busy adults with habit formation and productivity.
Chris’s most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, he published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA, where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.