Key Words; Welcome To Keywords - Alphasmart NEO2 SmartApplet User Manual

K W
EY ORDS

Welcome to KeyWords

The KeyWords SmartApplet develops basic keyboarding skills using fun and
interesting lessons. Keyboarding is an essential skill for success, and good
keyboarding skills allow you to write much more quickly than if you had to
spend time hunting for each key.
KeyWords keeps learners interested as it teaches typing, employing a
language-based system that entertains as it trains. It provides cumulative
lessons that teach accuracy and speed a few keys at a time, and it offers
encouragement with positive feedback and helpful hints. KeyWords also
checks progress at each level with typing tests. You can then view progress
reports on the NEO or by using the KeyWords program in Renaissance Place.
The KeyWords design is based on research about how people learn to type:
• Speed and typing fluency increase more readily if simple words are used
and repeated. The KeyWords method follows this model of repetition,
presenting diverse vocabulary, rhymes, and humor to keep lessons
interesting.
• Typists learn patterns of keystrokes more quickly when they aren't
interrupted by immediate corrections. The KeyWords error-checking
method emphasizes the importance of words and phrases.
• Speed skills and accuracy are best developed independently. KeyWords
provides separate lessons for these skills. You can set proficiency goals and
view reports as learners test themselves.
• Speed increases with practice typing words and phrases instead of random
letters. By practicing with words and phrases, new typists learn common
letter patterns that are the building blocks for simple and complex words.
This promotes the ability to quickly recognize and type letter combinations
that occur frequently.
5-1