Does your child need more practice after BBC Dance Mat Typing? (2024)

Does your child need more practice after BBC Dance Mat Typing? (1)

Dance Typing from the BBC is 20 years old this year! And it’s still one of the most popular free touch typing programs for children in the UK. Colourful cartoons with talking animals, it’s a fun way to introduce younger children to the idea of touch typing. But with just 240 lines of text over 12 stages, that’s nowhere near enough to teach your child the unconscious, physical skill of touch typing. It’s not just increasing words per minute the benefits of engaging muscle memory range from improving spelling, helping literacy, reducing cognitive load, reducing visual stress, increasing quality & quantity of work and self esteem.

Come and meet Dance Typing’s big brother: Englishtype. Designed by the Educational Psychologist who was the typing & literacy expert on the Typing team. Meet Englishtype’s Qwerty the robot, and follow his extensive course teaching touch typing. See how it compares with Mat Typing on our website.

20 years ago, the team behind this won a BAFTA for their work, a proud achievement! If you’ve tried BBC Dancemat with your child, but want to get serious and for them to master the skill of touch typing – Englishtype is the very best next step for more “dancing on the keyboard”.

Typing by touch is a physical skill; it uses the unconscious muscle memory instead of the conscious brain. To transfer the skill from conscious to unconscious takes quite a lot of practice and activities designed to target specific areas of skill building – accuracy, speed, pairs & patterns of letters, difficult spellings and high frequency words.

Mat Typing provides a basic introduction to typing using all the fingers; it has simple lessons and teaches a few words using just 240 lines of text in the whole program. It’s a bit like typing “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” 240 times and hope that it will teach your child to type: it won’t! Learning to type by touch needs a lot more practice. Dance Mat can improve keyboard familiarity, making children a little faster on the keyboard, but building the unconscious, automatic skill that unlocks so many more benefits requires about 25 hours of practice (that’s active keyboard time) – that would be an awful lot of repetition of the 12 lessons in Dance Mat Typing!

Learning to type happens in 3 stages:

  1. Conscious memorisation of fingers and letters (and colours)
  2. Conscious learning of the finger movement required to type each letter
  3. Unconscious physical skill – with enough practice and the right activities, steps one and two move from needing conscious thought to being unconscious – like playing a sport, musical instrument or riding a bike

Any typing software that is going to successfully teach a child to type by touch needs to deliver enough content to move through these 3 stages, with enough entertainment and vocabulary to build the skill. For a skill that will last a lifetime, 25 hours of practice isn’t much – kids can learn in a term or two, or even less if they practice intensively.

Englishtype teaches with a combination of Main Lessons, Extra Lessons, Spelling Lessons, 6 different Games, Speed Booster and TypeTest. Kids love to win gems and outfits for Qwerty the robot – making learning fun and practice time & skill building is painless! Come and try Englishtype.

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Does your child need more practice after BBC Dance Mat Typing? (2024)

FAQs

Does your child need more practice after BBC Dance Mat Typing? ›

That being said, although students will need additional typing practice after completing all the levels, Dance Mat Typing is still a fantastic introduction to the typing keyboard, and it will begin preparing the students who use it for more difficult typing challenges and practice found elsewhere.

Is dance mat typing good? ›

Dance Mat Typing will help your kids learn to type – or if they can type already, it'll help them get better and better! No signing up or logging in; the clear instructions and simple interface may very well allow kids to use it without adult assistance.

How many levels are in dance mat typing? ›

All the 12 stages of BBC typing course – Dance Mat Typing.

Does dance mat typing still exist? ›

If you teach touch typing for kids, you've probably seen or used Dance Mat Typing from the BBC – it's been around for 20 years and is one of the longest serving touch typing programs. It's still a great free resource, giving an introduction to the idea of touch typing.

How to improve typing speed for kids? ›

Encourage practice and celebrate progress: As with most skills, consistent practice is the key to success when it comes to typing. Remind your child that progress comes with time and dedicated practice, so it's normal if they don't see improvement right away.

Is it worth it to practice typing? ›

Save time. Perhaps the most obvious benefit of learning to touch type is that it saves an individual (and their company) considerable amounts of time. An average two finger typist, with a speed of 10 words per minute, will type a 170-word section in about 17 minutes.

What is the most effective typing method? ›

Touch typing is undeniably the most effective typing technique. It is the professional method taught in schools, ideally starting from a young age. Once this method is mastered, the gaze is fixed on the screen, never on the keys. Instead, it relies on muscle memory to help your fingers “remember” the key positions.

What is the hardest dance type to learn? ›

The ballet dance style and moves are some of the most difficult ones that exist today. Here's what you need to know about why ballet is one of the toughest dances in the world.

How does dance mat typing work? ›

Welcome to Dance Mat Typing, a fun way to learn touch typing

You start by learning the home row keys. Each stage builds on previous lessons, introducing new letters as you progress and giving you plenty of touch type practice. You'll soon be touch typing like an expert!

Is dance mat good exercise? ›

The best thing about a dance mat has to be how much fun it is. Unlike doing the same workout at the gym every session, the dance mat can provide a different programme each time. With so many games available the possibilities are endless. Working out on the Dance Mat can burn around 60 calories in 10 short minutes.

How much does dance mat typing cost? ›

Dance Mat Typing is a free online game that teaches kids to touch-type using the home-row method.

What is BBC typing? ›

BBC Typing are a fun and interactive way to improve your typing skills. Our games combine entertainment with practical learning, allowing users to increase their typing speed and accuracy while having fun. Discover our BBC Typing and start improving your skills today.

How long should kids practice typing? ›

Regular practice is crucial. A daily practice of 15 to 30 minutes can yield significant improvement within a few weeks. It's important to keep the practice sessions short and enjoyable to maintain the child's interest.

How fast should a kid be able to type? ›

As a guide, beginners between the ages of 6 to 11 years old typically type at a rate of 15 wpm, beginners between the ages of 12 to 16 years old at a rate of 30 wpm, and intermediate typists at a rate of 40 wpm.

What is a good typing speed for a 10 year old? ›

Final Target
Age rangeBeginnerExpert
6 to 11 years old15 wpm (75 cpm) 80% accuracy35 wpm (175 cpm) 90% accuracy
12 to 16 years old30 wpm (150 cpm) 85% accuracy50 wpm (250 cpm) 95% accuracy
17 years old and over45 wpm (225 cpm) 90% accuracy65 wpm (325 cpm) 100% accuracy

Is 10 finger typing worth learning? ›

There is no doubt about it: touch typing is a much better bet than the hunt and peck method! So before you wear out those index fingers, it's worth investing the time and effort that it takes to learn to type with all ten fingers. And it's never too early or late to get started!

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