Nessy Fingers Touch Typing

overview

Nessy Fingers is a touch typing course for children, set in the land of Ness. They learn to type in five short lessons by learning the keys in alphabetical order. After learning each group of letters children can play fun games to reinforce the position of those letters on the keyboard. Each game has nine difficulty levels from tortoise to lightning fingers, which enables children of all abilities to succeed. The spelling lists can be edited and include UK curriculum word lists. This is the best typing program I have seen and feel it really encourages the children to want to succeed. A pupil said after using the program ‘we learn and have fun at the same time’.

In the classroom you find that children are often slow typing because they do not know where the letters of the alphabet are on the keyboard. This program is ideal for helping them find their way around a keyboard, having fun as they learn to type and getting them out of the habit of one finger typing. The Primary Literacy Strategy mentions the use of keyboard tutors to aid writing.

Nessy fingers has eight different games including Goarilla where you have to score goals against a Gorilla and Snowballs where you have to help Kipper the penguin home, the games provide practice in typing words and sentences and are of varying lengths. The children enjoyed being able to play the games and win the awards. After playing games the children can take part in the time trial and get a 'words per minute' score. As the children’s skills improve the supplied stickers can be used to cover the letters on the keyboard so that they are looking at the screen and not their fingers. This was not initially popular with the children but made them better at touch typing.

The user manual and the introduction exercise emphasise the need for good posture and taking regular breaks when using a computer, something which we constantly have to remind children about. The resources pack can be used to support learning away from the keyboard and for homework activities.

Overall I found this to be an excellent touch typing program for children. It is easy to use and the short lessons and games make learning fun. It not only improves their typing skills but also helps with spelling.

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