WARMINSTER, PA. Kids get head start on typing skills

Some pupils learn Microsoft's PowerPoint and Excel programs in early grades.
WARMINSTER, Pa. (AP) -- Chances are that if you remember the 1970s, you remember hunting and pecking your way through typing class in ninth or 10th grade.
"I went to Palisades and I took it in high school," recalled Gary Adams, a 1984 graduate who now serves as that district's director of technology. "We weren't able to take it in junior high school."
With computers, the Internet and e-mail spawning legions of tech-savvy preteens, that strategy is as outmoded as the eight-track stereo.
Last week, Warminster's Cecilia Weir, 7, was typing a story about a blue poodle on one of Willow Dale Elementary School's AlphaSmart Pro word processors. She was one of a half-dozen second-graders who spent part of their Friday in front of a word processor.
"I feel like a grown-up at a computer," said Shannon Dowling, 7, who was writing about her recently deceased dog, Cinnamon.
Willow Dale's reading specialist, Ann Boger, explained that pupils begin word processing in first grade. They start by learning where all the keys are, then practice typing words and sentences.
Starting with the basics
The Centennial School District bought 60 AlphaSmart Pro processors in the late 1990s, and while they are hardly cutting-edge technology these days, the district stuck with them because they allow children to learn basic keyboarding skills without bogging them down with more complicated computer applications.
Every other week, first-graders use the word processors, which are capable of storing up to 12 pages of text, to type sentences and paragraphs. The work can be printed out when the AlphaSmart Pro is attached to a computer.
"Originally when we got them, there weren't nearly as many computers and we wanted to give more children access to technology," said Boger, who added that it was cheaper to buy processors than computers.
In the Palisades School District, "keyboarding classes" -- the term now used in lieu of "typing classes" -- start in third grade, though children can be introduced to computers earlier.
"It has been third grade for at least the last three years," Adams said. "Before that there were no keyboarding programs in place."
Heads off bad habits
It is important to get to kids early to teach them some of the fundamentals before they learn too much on their own.
"Our lab aides have complained about kids' coming in with bad habits," Adams said.
Children are on the computer as soon as they are old enough to attend school in Upper Moreland, according to Assistant Superintendent Robert Milrod.
"The students come in already having a good deal of skill," he said. "My 2-year-old is on the computer every day."
Steve Westfall, the district's software support specialist, said the pupils learn keyboarding through the Mavis Beacon Teacher Typing program and are introduced to Microsoft's PowerPoint and Excel programs early in elementary school.
"It isn't your mom's typing class," he said.