Mrs. Cornett's

"No Frills"

Keyboarding Information Page
Click  here to go to  the NCS Home Page or the NCS Student Page .


Information about:

Files to download:
Links:
This "no frills" page was created as a tool,
 so you can download the papers your child might have forgotten at school.

  Your feedback is welcome. Email me at:

SCornett@ncs.k12.de.us

Practice Logs
Practice logs are due weekly for all keyboarding students. They are worth 10 points each.  Late forms will be accepted for partial credit, up to one week after the due date.  After that they will not be accepted.

Students should aim to practice 15 minutes every night. I know that sometimes this isn't possible.  To receive all 10 points a student must:
  • Fill out the form honestly (If you didn't practice, tell me why.)
  • Have a parent/guardian sign it
  • Turn it in on the due date
If a student has lost a form, you can download it from above.

Practicing at Home

Learning to type is like learning to play an instrument.  15-20 minutes of practice every day leads to success.

Students should put their fingers in the "home row" position EVERY TIME they are at the keyboard, whether it is for sending email, "IM-ing" their friends, typing reports or practicing their keyboarding.

By not using the correct fingering, they are "undoing" the training their brains are receiving by having the keyboards covered.

Starting with their second class, students will have practicing to do each night.

As your student is practicing at home, have them say each letter, space, and punctuation mark out-loud as they type it.  Using this "See it, Say it, Strike it" method provides another reinforcement for them and encourages them to type letters, not words. Professional typists will type an entire page without knowing what they typed.  They don't read and think about what they are typing. They just type the next letter in the line, and then the next.  I am encouraging students to type that way.  Even if they don't know a word they should just type the letters.  When the passage is a tongue twister like "She sells seashells at the seashore." they do much better if they DON'T think about the words, but just type the letters.

Finger and Hand Exercises- Help for tired hands
Healthy Typing Finger Exercises

     If your hands and arms feel tired from typing, try these exercises.


Type To Learn3 Settings

A few parents have told me that the home version of Type to Learn 3  lets the students pass a "mission" with lower scores than I use in the classroom, and that it doesn't require them to complete all the activities on each level. That is because I have customized the program.  The good news is that you can also customize it.

To customize the program, go to the first log-in screen and press Control-T.  There is no password set when you first get the program (press return). You can set one yourself if you choose to do so. Then you can go in and change the settings.  At school I set it to make all the activities "required" except notebook and dictation station.   I recommend that if your computer has sound, you make dictation station required.  We don't have the capabilities at NCS to use this activity but I think it is very worthwhile.

At school, the software allows students to go to the next level with less than the scores I require, but by monitoring them, I keep them from doing so. You can see what your child is doing by looking at their charts from the main menu of TTL3.

Thanks for the feedback on this!