Touch Typing Practice
Many of us thought that typing is important to a certain profession. So they don't focus on this matter. In this article, I am going to show you some facts on why touch typing practice is a necessity, especially for students.
Remember the times in school, when our hands would ache from taking running notes? Or when we would scribble and scratch out something, and later get scolded for it?
Long back, after high school, students took up typing courses to increase their skills for future jobs. Well, now that times have changed, it has been observed that schools have failed to prepare students for the future workplace environment.
It is because the schools but have never focused on teaching the students to type accurately using a keyboard.
A new method of typing that has gained ground in recent times is that of touch typing. It is a faster and more effective way of typing, and definitely better than the traditional ‘hunt and peck’ method.
Hunt and peck method (also known as the Columbus method) is an inconvenient form of typing that involves the user to search (hunt) for the key and finally press (peck) it. It is time-consuming and extremely inefficient as opposed to touch typing. So, here is the reasons why keyboarding is important for students.
Why should you practice touch typing?
Speed
Imagine having to take down handwritten notes in a fifty-minute-long class. The teacher babbles away to glory, and all you takedown looks like a scribbled dragon doodle. Once a student starts practicing touch typing, he/she can easily reach the 80 words per minute threshold in comparison with the hunt and peck typists who can write only 30-40 words per minute.
It is a known fact that reading and writing simultaneously are extremely difficult, but with enough practice, the students don’t even have to look at their keyboard.
Accuracy
All the PUBG lovers will know what all this is about. In any multi-player game, quick and efficient in-match typing is very important.
If one has clumsy typing skills, nobody will rush to save them. Touch typing when practiced properly gives marvelous results where individual functions like the superhero Flash, typing extremely fast and with accuracy. Also, while typing, mistakes get highlighted and thus typed documents are prone to be comparatively less erroneous.
Time
When projects and assignments had to be handwritten, students would grumble and take long to submit their work. But with a developing skill in touch typing, once one learns to type fast, their workload gets halved.
Not only do they type correctly, but they are also more satisfied because of the lesser amount of effort they have to put in. Having keyboarding skills also help the students be more productive in their field of work because twice as much is done in the given amount of time.
Focus
It is extremely difficult to multitask. For hunt and peck typists, their focus is divided between the keys to be chosen from the keyboard and the writing that needs to be done on the monitor.
Touch typing enables one to focus on one particular thing rather than two. One does not lose concentration while trying to find the next key to type. Better attention leads to better productivity. Students tend to pay more attention to their work and submit nearly error-free assignments and projects. Improvement of focus also allows them to think freely which bears fruit in the end.
Health
Imagine having to sit at your desk for days in order to submit the History assignment on time. Your body is drained of energy and your backache is unbearable.
Writing or using traditional typing methods involve longer hours than that of touch typing. Hunching over the keyboard looking for keys causes mental and physical fatigue.
Using all your fingers while touch typing reduces the risk of repetitive stress injuries, more commonly known as RSIs. Once students learn to touch type, they get a fairly clear idea about correct posture typing which spares them of physical and mental strain.
Editing
Hunt and peck typists never notice their mistakes as they are always staring at the keyboard and never at the computer screen.
In school, on making a mistake, us students would have had to either erase the entire sentence or scribble all over it. How we would wish for a magic device to help us undo the mistake.
With touch typing in our lives, we now have plenty of opportunities to do so. One can see their errors and simply press on backspace to undo it, without getting a big red mark from the teacher. Spelling and grammatical errors are easily recognized and save the writer from extra trouble of having to refer to the dictionary.
Future Rehearsals
Touch typing when added to your resume as a skill boosts one’s chances in bagging good job opportunities. This is because workplaces require fast and accurate typing which leads to increased productivity. It proves to be one of the most invaluable skills in the course of a student’s career, both in the professional and scholastic aspect.
Whether they are an educator, scholar, doctor or employer, computers are required in all walks of life. Students with touch typing skills usually deliver more accurate and productive works, and this skill is a feather added to their caps. Touch typists get their work is done to a larger extent than traditional typists and make an overall good impression on their employers.
Easy and Fun
Children often benefit a lot from touch typing besides learning as it is a multi-sensory approach which emphasizes phonics and helps strengthen reading, writing as well as spelling skills (muscle memory).
With time, as assignments grow bigger and tougher, their ideas are fluent and they can type smoothly. Typing smoothes writing skills and makes peer-editing as well as revision exercises easier and more fun.
Touch typing also helps kids with dyslexia who find it difficult to write. It improves their motor skills and makes learning and typing seem like a fun activity.
I think these reasons are enough to touch typing practice