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March 30, 2021 8:16 PM

We need to get our seven year old son touch typing! What's the best games to suit a child learning to touch type?

It has been suggested that for a few reasons Mugface would be best served learning to touch type. I learned to touch type using Mavis Beacon as a young person, and I think something similar would be best for him.

He's into STEM, especially robots, but also enjoys race games, Roblox and the usual suspects for the under eights. He doesn't have spectacular focus so nothing with a steep learning curve.

PC would be best, his tablet is a good five years old and its ability to connect to peripherals is patchy.

While free would be great, I don't mind paying for software without ads or microtransactions.

posted by Jilder to Education (13 answers total)

Response by poster: Oh, I forgot to add offline software would be best.
posted by Jilder at 8:18 PM on March 30, 2021

Best answer: It's an online program, and not free (but not unreasonable cost and ad/transaction free), but I highly recommend Keyboarding Without Tears. It came recommended by Occupational Therapy for my kiddo. She is a fluent touch typist at 10. It does have reasonable cross-curricular connections, so it's not typing random stuff for no reason.

Keyboarding Without Tears

Typing is an awesome skill!
posted by Northbysomewhatcrazy at 8:35 PM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

I don't know what his/your tolerance for zombie gore is, but Typing of the Dead was amazing.

The graphics are terrible early 3d, the voice acting is atrocious, but none of that matters.

In fact, I could use a refresher myself...
posted by alexei at 9:31 PM on March 30, 2021 [4 favorites]

Best answer: TypingClub is a free web-based platform, has been great for my older students, and has a version for younger ones. I also learned to type using Mavis Beacon and I feel it’s similar.
posted by mkdirusername at 9:31 PM on March 30, 2021 [4 favorites]

Just wanted to add that learning to type is one of the few areas where I think it is appropriate to bribe kids. In our house it was set of little plastic ponies that were offered as reward for x minutes of typing practice. It helped motive the student to get through the most awkward and boring parts - once they get to about 10 wpm - after that it is enough faster to touch type that it isn't as important.
posted by metahawk at 9:32 PM on March 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

My son (7) played a bit of Epistory: Typing Chronicles and liked it.
posted by nsillik at 9:44 PM on March 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

I was going to recommend Epistory also. But you need to interleave that with how to position each finger on the home row, and how to memorize the keyboard so a key can be pressed without looking at the keyboard. Use both, then Epistory as a reward, IMHO, would yield better results.

Typing of the Dead for teenagers.
posted by kschang at 11:39 PM on March 30, 2021

Icarus Proudbottom Teaches Typing was a fun game. It doesn't really get into technique recommendations like Mavis Beacon, but it is engaging and funny. It's also dead because it's a Flash game. You could try to set it up in Flashpoint (previously) or similar.

Holy Wow Studios also produced two other Icarus Proudbottom typing games; I haven't tried them but they're here and here. They're probably worth a look.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:32 AM on March 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

That said, some of the humour in Teaches Typing may be unsuitable for his age; you might want to check the first few texts beforehand. It's not a very long game and there are videos of it on youtube.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 5:38 AM on March 31, 2021

Best answer: JumpStart Typing is also older (1997) offline software; you can still find cheap CDs from eBay and other online shops as well as downloads. The graphics are dated now but the games are fun (includes a robot character and a racing competition) and designed for ages 7-10.
posted by eyeball at 7:28 AM on March 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

Playing DikuMUDs was what finally got me to be a pretty decent typer. That's probably a bit old school for kids these days though. :)
posted by bowmaniac at 7:36 AM on March 31, 2021

Response by poster: Turns out Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing is free these days. Ima just put that here for anyone looking at this thread in the future.

Thanks to everyone who offered age appropriate advice.
posted by Jilder at 5:22 PM on March 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Actually it runs like shit and keeps asking for a product key, so no, don't use the free Mavis Beacon. Which is a shame because when it runs properly its fukken perfect.
posted by Jilder at 2:44 AM on April 1, 2021