My son is working on increasing his typing speed. He learned to type on his own without using a typing program and could type about 20 words a minute doing it his way. I finally talked him into trying the Jumpstart Typing that we bought several years ago and in just five days he has increased his speed to 29 words per minute and he is still practicing, trying to increase it even further. I wish everything else he tried was this easy. It sure helps when "he" decides it is something he "wants" to do.

Yippee! I'm so glad to hear about his increase. I agree - when it's 'their' idea things seem to 'take flight.'

My son has enjoyed this free online tutorial (designed for 7-11 yr olds). Typing really does help when they're struggling to get out ideas and the handwriting is still sloooow, although thankfully that too has improved a lot this year.

Lori, this might be too rudimentary for your ds, but I figured it might help someone who's just starting...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/

I tried to get him to learn to type without looking at the keys last year and he argued that his 20 wpm was fast enough for him. I wanted him to be able to get his thoughts on paper without having to think about each letter of each word like he was doing. I wasn't sure how much he could increase his speed because some people with motor dyspraxia have trouble with typing and speed has always been a problem for him in anything physical.

He decided he needed to increase his typing speed because he wants to get a job at Game Stop as soon as he is old enough, while he also attends college. I think our local Game Stop hires a lot of college students. He has a few years, since he is only 10, but he wants to work on these skills now, so he looked up the job requirements and found that typing is required. He also talked to his sister about a part time office job she had while going to school and she told him that she had to pass a 50 wpm typing test. That is his goal now--to get beyond 50 wpm.

He has also been working on cash register skills and he plays business simulation computer games.

Thanks, I'll have him look at that.

Some advice for parents with younger kids.
I just wanted to chime in on our typing experience. We used the jumpstart program in tandem with obscuring all the keys when he was very young, I think while he was still 3. I highly recommend the method for parents of younger kids who haven't formed habits yet. He learned to type that way and now types very fast and very accurately, without looking. It is really second nature to him.

I think this is good advice. My son was already well on his way to learning bad typing habits at 3, since he was on the computer a lot and doing games like Reader Rabbit First Grade and already typing some words. I couldn't afford a computer as a single parent when my daughter was younger so she didn't learn to type until middle school. My husband told me that his older son taught himself to type at a very early age and could type 100 wpm as a teenager. Our son was a lot like his older brother at age 3 so we thought it was okay to wait.

This is a cute program, thanks. Are there other on-line touch-typing resources?

Thanks for the dance mat typing link Chris. DS7 has been working on it this summer and finished it the other day. He was very proud that he can now type.

Just another word of thanks for this thread. It had never occurred to me to teach DS to type, but we've been working on the BBC dance matt program since I viewed the thread a couple of weeks ago, and he is eating it up. Great topic.