TL;DR:

Type Dojo and KidzType are sister sites with free typing lessons, practices, and typing games. They do have some ads (kid friendly), but they do not obstruct usage. They offer so many activities that it can be a little confusing to navigate, but I’ve organized them to show you how to make a complete typing curriculum for kids – totally free.

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Best Links from TypeDojo & KidzType To Bookmark Right Now:

My girls and I had a really fun time exploring TypeDojo and KidzType for fun typing lessons and typing games. We covered every inch of each site, which is why I thought it’d be fun to put together curriculum maps for younger kids (keep scrolling to find the maps below).

On TypeDojo you have the option of creating an account which gives you a dashboard to track your progress. This let’s you keep track of the lessons your kids are doing and see how they’re improving.

One of the things we liked best was the typing test with printable certificate. My girls are just suckers for awards! We liked trying for a best score and printing the certificate to replace when they beat their score the next time.

My daughter loved the free typing tests with printable certificates.

One of the best things about the lessons over on TypeDojo is that they start out super short and easy. All my girls loved this and really surprised me with their threshold for typing lessons. I thought for sure they’d think it was too tedious to go on but they sure proved me wrong! I think part of that is because of how short the lessons are. It leaves them wanting more.

The free typing lessons on TypeDojo are perfect for younger kids – short and progressive.

When it came time to explore all the kids typing games over on KidzType, we definitely found some favorites! My kids really liked the games that let them pick their character and choose a level (easy, medium, hard) or a row to work on. Some of the games were a bit harder for them because they’re all just starting out with their typing lessons, but there were plenty of fun ones they could play as beginners.

The free typing games over at KidzType were super fun for my younger kids.

Because TypeDojo and KidzType have such awesome lessons and games, you can build an entire kid friendly typing curriculum for your little students! Instead of having to piece it together yourself, here are a couple of curriculum maps that take the best of both websites and put them in an order that I think would be perfect for your little beginning typists. Enjoy!

Right now with kids having to do so much schoolwork on computers, it can be really tough if your little ones don’t know how to touch type yet. Even younger kids are expected to do work on the computer now, and that keyboard is tough to deal with when you haven’t even learned how to write properly!

Personally I believe that there’s really no school age that’s too young for kids to start learning how to touch type. Even for the youngest kids, typing involves fine motor control, letter recognition and matching skills. And kids really do need to develop this skill in our modern age! While they’re growing up on tablets and touchscreens it can be a huge shock to not be able to use a computer (which looks so similar to tablets) just because they can’t find the keys they need to type words.

All that frustration can become something they associate with subjects they’re learning. They may end up hating math simply because using their online math program was so hard with the keyboard and mouse. Eek! We can’t let that happen!

That’s why learning how to touch type is so helpful for our younger kids.

The problem is that most typing programs are designed for older kids. There are some big challenges here.

Younger kids (think, ages 5 through 12) need small lessons and lots of positive reinforcement. Jumping into a curriculum designed for older kids will have the younger ones shutting down quickly – and worse, creating a negative experience with computers and the subjects they’re learning on them.

That’s why finding those bite-sized lessons and games on TypeDojo.com and KidzType.com is super helpful. You can alternate these tiny lessons with fun games and work on your child’s typing skills for 10 to 15 minutes each day. In my personal opinion, that’s all it takes for kids to boost their typing skills in a big enough way to really help them succeed with online curriculum.

Once they’ve got some typing skills down, your kids’ world opens up in big ways. They can write creative stories, write emails to family members, and explore kid-safe articles and curriculum on anything they could possibly ever want to learn.

I really hope this post helps you and your kids tackle this oftentimes challenging skill. Hop on over to TypeDojo to try out some typing lessons or KidzType to play some fun typing games!

Let me know if you have any questions or if you want to share your own experiences. I’d love to read your comments below!

Blessings,
Christy