Teacher shares their account of a 23 wpm increase in one year!

As this year draws to a close, we reached out to some schools and classes which have shown growth over 2019 through using Typing Tournament Online. Mr Dennis Alexander’s class of 5G at St Mary’s School in Dubbo NSW has shown massive improvement.St Mary's School Typing Tournament Online Growth over 8 months Over the course of 2019, 5G had an increase of 23 Words Per Minute (wpm) for the average speed of the class. The end result of this increase was an average speed of 43.43 wpm. This exceeds the generally accepted speed for adult competency of 40 wpm and works well towards the new national touch typing standards as set by ACARA.

Due to this improvement our CEO, Graham East, contacted to Mr Alexander to see what was being done to achieve such stellar results. Mr Alexander had quite a lot to share about his unique approach to using Typing Tournament Online. The following is his explanation of how he improved his students’ touch typing.

Typing Tournament and my Class in 2019

“During 2019 Typing Tournament has been a positive and important part of the daily teaching and learning in my class. We have made very strong progress and seen a massive increase in proficiency with the important skill of keyboarding.

We do Typing Tournament 4-5 days a week during most weeks. We only do it for short 8-10 minute bursts Typing in student news as St Mary'seach day. This is one of the reasons that the kids do not get bored doing Typing Tournament. In addition they become competitive with their scores and set themselves goals and targets. They then persist to achieve these.

They also were looking at the national leaderboards for their age group. Fortunately we have been in the top three of the leaderboard for typing speed. Each Friday each student had to do a one minute speed test, and then I would use the speed test report to create the top 20 leaderboard for our class. This was very motivating for the whole class. I have also noticed that some students who would not normally be at the top of academic leaderboards often are in typing. (Students with good hand eye co-ordination often seem to be good at typing.) So I have had kids who are high achievers in sport but not academics excited to make it near the top of the leaderboard.

Apart from the important skill and value of typing the students are reading, spelling, punctuating and representing words the whole time that they are typing. I like this because it is has to be helping their reading, writing and spelling.

My class certainly has enjoyed doing Typing Tournament across 2019 and have been very motivated to make massive gains in the important life skill of typing. Almost every child in my class can now type faster than they can write.”

Dennis Alexander – Classroom Teacher from St Mary’s School Dubbo

Dennis Alexander's Class's thoughts on Typing Tournament Online

Want to share your experience with Typing Tournament Online? Email us at info@typingtournament.com to share your story.

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