Read the following information. Apply the information to why you should learn to touch type.

Many students will ask, "Why should I learn to type correctly when I can already type fast using the 'hunt and peck' method?"  Read some of the following comments that have been made by different sources:

• Former student:  "Thank you for teaching me to type correctly.  I would never be able to keep up with the work that we are doing in class without having learned to type without looking!"
  
• Studies in Japan show that computer users who know how to touch type, learn new software programs 40% faster than those that don’t.
  
• Consider how impossibly tedious it is for an adult to read a book by reading each letter of a word.  Typing by visually searching for individual letters and hitting the keys with one or two fingers is just as tedious, wasting hours on the PC each day.  Ten finger typists can do more work in fewer hours, giving them extra time to devote to other tasks.
  
  Typing with 10 fingers is a skill like riding a bicycle - the more you do, the faster and better you get. Two finger typing is like riding with your feet on the ground - there is no learned skill and it leaves you frustrated when the others ride away!
  
  Typing with ten fingers is not merely five times better. It is better because you type words and phrases sub-consciously. Like reading, you get the story without reading each letter. A lawyer commented that he used to say he could type as fast as he could think but now he types properly and quickly he says he can think faster.
  
  Touch typing is the real-time transfer of human ideas to the computer. It is thought processing, which is much more than word processing.
  
• Why should you learn to touch type?
  • It is a skill for the rest of your life
  • Typing is much faster than writing
  • It will help you do your homework faster
  • You never have to write out your work again (as long as you remember to save properly what you have written!)
  • As you type you will improve your spelling
  • You can use the spell checker to improve it even more!
    
• Think about this for a moment... 
  When we teach someone to read we don't just throw them a book and say "go for it", do we? No, of course not. Yet, time and time again people are placed in front a computer and expected to become productive without proper keyboard training. This has to STOP!

  Touch-typing is a mandatory skill for anyone working with a computer in this day-and-age. We don't formally ask our staff or students to work with one hand tied behind their backs, but if they aren't a good typist... we might as well get the rope out now!

  Two fingered typing, or the 'hunt-and-peck' method might have been fine to get a simple job done a few years back. Back then you may have hardly used a computer at all. Now, they run just about everything and you just can not afford to waste valuable time.

  A 'hunt-and-peck' typist:

  • Might average 10 words per minute, if they're lucky
  • Will take 5+ hours of solid typing to get the job done
  • Oh, and don't even mention editing or rewrites to them, they'll likely scream!

  A good touch-typist:

  • Averages 60+ words per minute
  • Will be finished in well under one hour!
  • They'll be very comfortable making edits if needed as they won't take long...
  • And, they'll be on their way home a long time before the 'hunt-and-pecker' is even half way done on the first pass!

   

• Online keyboarding programs