TOS Review: Keyboard Town Pals

 

• Keyboard Town Pals is an online program designed to teach children ages 7–10  how to type, using fun and memorable characters
• The Cost is $39.95 for CD-ROM or Web Based version
• Also available in French and Spanish

SUNNY IS THE TYPING INSTRUCTOR

Keyboard Town Pals uses video lesson’s to teach kids how to type. There are 8 video’s, one for each finger on home key street. During the video Sunny uses creative ways to help the child learn where the letters are and which fingers to use. After a little time learning the letters the child is instructed to practice by typing the letters in the box below the video screen. Keyboard Town Pals believe the child will  learn to type in an hour.

My Experience

Positives first:

I believe the concept of Keyboard Town Pals is wonderful. They use characters to teach the letters, for example the letter L is Larry and he lives on Home Key Street. He lives beside K who finishes nothing, but Larry loves books and he always finishes them. When he goes downtown he goes to Period who lives in the library and finishes sentences…you get the idea.

I do believe this is a great way to help the kids remember which finger to use for each key and also to trigger their memory as to where the keys are located.

Now for my negative thoughts:

In my opinion the age range is way off. The program appears very childish and my 9 year old struggled to continue using it. The characters are life size puppets and it just seemed silly to him. Some of the letters used sound clues that didn’t follow real reading rules. For example, Emma was used as the character for M because Emma starts with the /m/ sound. I believe with the younger children or older children that struggle with reading, this could be confusing. There are plenty of words/names that begin with the /m/ sound and actually begin with M.

The program is supposed to teach the child to type in one hour. My child was able to get through with the right hand in less then an hour but at that point his fingers/hands/arms were a little tired so he had to stop.

He already knew where most of the letters were located but was still not able to take off typing. I guess the idea is that they will “learn” the correct way to type, but not necessarily be able to do it, after only an hour.

Check out the TOS Post to see what other homeschoolers thought of Keyboard Town Pals

**Disclaimer: As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew, I received this product free of charge, in exchange for my honest opinion/review. For more honest reviews from real homeschoolers, visit the TOS Crew website.