Typical Student Progress

This unique course is designed to enable students to become proficient typists in one school vacation.

Typing helps students achieve significantly better grades in both homework and exams.

One objective of the course is that every student will be able to type at least as quickly as they can write. The vast majority of students far exceed this goal, being able to type 2, 3, 4 or even 5 times faster.

Why is speed important?

Students with learning needs are disadvantaged in exams because exams always test speed as well as knowledge. Consequently being able to type more in a finite period can have a significant impact on grades.

How fast will my child be able to type?

When it comes to typing speed, results vary considerably. Not wanting to mislead parents, I have included a large number of actual student progress charts to help you see the variation in progress.

While progress varies significantly, it is clear that every student benefited considerably.

Background information

To help make the student progress charts more meaningful. The speed and accuracy students achieve depend on:

• Student age;

• Dexterity (shown by handwriting speed);

• Duration of the course (the longer the better)

• Calculation of the additional sentences that could be typed in a 2.5 hour period. (More information below.)

Actual Results

Secondary aged students

Primary aged students

Explanation of Results Shown

* Exams Additional ‘n’ sentences

This is a calculation of the additional sentences a student would be able to type rather than write by hand in a 2.5 hour exam period.

Assumptions made to calculate additional sentences.

I am using the example of a GCSE English exam as all students in the UK will sit this exam and need to pass it to progress to further and higher education.

• English Language GCSE - 2 papers 1 hour and 45 minutes each Total 3 5 hours in total

• Most students on the course get 25% extra time,

• Allowing for thinking time we conservatively assume students will have a miniumum of 2.5 hours to write,

• I have assumed a typical sentence for a 16-year-old would contain 15 words.

This is enourmously beneficial for all essay-based exams.

How does this impact a student’s grades?

We would conservatively suggest that writing an extra correct sentence could obtain an extra mark.

Given the number of extra sentences that both quick and slow typists of all ages achieve, this could represent the difference between a fail and an impressive pass.

Typing in exams

If your dyslexic child is not a laptop user in exams, it would be worth exploring this with the school ASAP.