How touch typing can improve grades
There are many advantages when students type rather than handwrite their work. The advantages vary dependent on what is being typed whether completing course work or sitting exams
Improve homework grades
Any student can choose to type their homework. There are many advantages of typing rather than handwriting home/course work.
These include:
The ability to amend, correct and re-organise work quickly and easily.
Complete work quicker as typing tends to be much quicker than handwriting.
Produce more legible work.
Reduce hand pain from writing.
Help with:
Spelling & grammar check
Clarity & conciseness
Synonyms and Thesaurus
Parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives)
Translation to different languages
Having work read aloud or proofread. Mistakes can be heard and corrected.
Ability to take advantage of solutions to further improve the quality of their work e.g., Grammarly and mind mapping apps.
Colour backgrounds and reading pannels to help with visual stress
Want to know more?
In this video, I explain how typing can significantly help students improve their grades, confidence and life opportunities.
Improved grades in exams
Not all students are able to type in exams, but it is a reasonable adjustment for many students with special educational needs.
When students are laptop users in exams, they can:
Complete work much quicker than handwriting.
A student’s ability to write under time constraints is an important contributor to their exam performance.
Work is more legible.
No marks are lost because of difficulties deciphering handwriting.
Copy correct spellings
Correct spelling can be copied without slowing down. This is particularly important in exams when marks are deducted for incorrect spelling.
Easily re-organise & amend
Capture ideas then re-organise, and correct work quickly and easily.
Computer Reader
If a student is using a laptop in exams it is much easier to have a computer reader read the question papers aloud to students wearing headphones.
How typing speed impacts on exam grades
Every formal exam a student takes is a test of speed as well as knowledge.
This video uses actual student typing results to calculate the extra sentences students could type in a finite time compared to writing by hand.
“Touch typing has been so vital for me during my exams, without my laptop privilege and typing speed I don’t know how I would have achieved the grades I did.”