How long does it take to learn to touch type?
How long does it take to learn to touch type?
It’s a question that I have been asked several times and to be honest it’s a difficult one to answer.
A range of factors come into play in deciding how long it will take to learn how to touch type.
Factors to consider is the concentration, motivation, age of the student and if the student has any learning difficulties.
If a student has poor or weak concentration, then it will take them a lot longer to learn how to touch type. As touch typing requires a lot of concentration and persistence in learning where the keys are on the keyboard.
If a student is not motivated to learn touch typing, then unfortunately they will never learn how to touch type. If they don’t see the benefits of touch typing and rather do it their own way then a student will never learn to touch type correctly and will revert to their own ways (Hunt and Peck method).
The younger the student age the longer they will take to learn how to touch type. At Searsol, we only take on students from the age of eight. We feel any younger than eight, just ready to learn to touch type successfully due to size of their hands and lack of concentration.
If a student has a learning difficulty such as dyslexia, dyspraxia then this student will take longer to learn how to touch type compared to a student that doesn’t have these learning difficulties.
So going back to question, how long does it take to learn to touch type. An average student, would learn to touch type with eight to ten hours. All be it might be touch typing at a very slow speed ( 8-15 words per minute). To get to the target speed which is forty words per minute, then a student would need to put in another twenty hours of work before they can learn to type at this target speed.
Searsol provide after school touch typing courses and summer computer camps throughout Ireland.
