Typing practice for the classroom: on your own or against your class
A text appears on the screen and you type it out. Your speed in words per minute runs alongside, and a mistake has to be corrected before you can carry on. Typing practice needs no account; a class that is signed in types the same text against each other.
How it works
Type the text in front of you
The tool opens with a text and nothing else. Click the box and start. Your speed and how much of it landed appear straight away.
Fetch another text
There is a button under the board for a new text. Each one runs to between 180 and 300 characters: about a minute for somebody who is still learning.
Take on the challenge of the week
Every week there is one text that is the same for everybody, with a leaderboard beside it. This half needs an account. Try as often as you like; your best attempt counts.
Type with your class
Once you are signed in with your class code, choose "With your class". As soon as two children have done that, the countdown starts. Everybody gets the same text.
Typing together happens inside your class
Typing together used to run on a code of four characters that anybody could type in. That has gone. Whoever types together is signed in as a pupil of a class: the teacher hands out a class code of six characters, and it lasts the whole school year.
What you get back for it is a name that is yours. Your own first name stands beside your bar, still there next week, and a race you type out earns points. Neither was possible with a name typed in fresh each time.
As soon as two children of the same class are on this page, the lobby counts down: twenty seconds the first time and ten seconds after a race. If the teacher is in the lobby, nothing counts down and she presses start herself. Whoever arrives late is in the next race.
Everybody gets the same text, and beside each name is a bar that moves along as more of that text stands right. A teacher who would rather not have this switches playing together off for the class, and then the tool is simply a text to type out.
Who wins, and why it is not whoever hammered hardest
The result is marked on the server and not in the browser. What counts is how much of the text stands right. Where two children got equally far, whoever handed in first comes out on top.
That order is deliberate. You cannot type past a mistake in this box: put a wrong letter in and nothing happens until you take it back. Fast and sloppy therefore costs you time rather than getting you further.
If somebody drops out halfway, the rest are not left waiting for the whole lesson. They hand in what they have, or they fall out of the lobby and the race closes itself. The lobby then counts down to the next one.
What words per minute means
A "word" on any typing test is five characters, spaces included. That is a convention rather than a real word, and that is exactly what makes it useful: the number here is the same number other typing tests give, so it can be compared.
For a sense of scale: a pupil who is still learning manages 15 to 25 words a minute, someone who touch-types sits around 50 to 70, and past 100 is exceptional. What matters is the growth, not the number.
The accuracy beside it is how many of your keystrokes landed. Ten mistakes cost more time than they save, because each one has to be taken back before the next letter counts for anything.
What there is to practise
Typing is a motor skill, like tying a shoelace: you get better at it in short, frequent goes rather than in one long sitting. Three races at the end of a lesson do more than half an hour on a Friday afternoon.
The gain is not in moving faster but in looking less. Keep your hands on the right keys and stop watching the keyboard and the speed follows on its own. Agree that the text above the box is what gets read, not the keys below it.
The texts here are real sentences rather than lists of words, with capitals, commas and full stops. That is deliberate: sentences are what anybody actually types, and the little fingers and the shift key are part of the job. They are written per language too, so the English text is English and not a translation.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to make an account?
Not for the typing itself: the tool opens with a text and works without signing in. The challenge of the week and typing with your class do need one, because both carry a name that has to be the same name next week.
How do we type together as a class?
The teacher sets the class up and hands out a class code of six characters. The pupils sign in with it and open this page. From two children the lobby counts down and the race starts on its own; a teacher who is watching presses start themselves.
Can I still share a code with friends at home?
No. The races on a four character code have gone. Typing together only happens inside a class now, because points hang on it and a score needs a name that lasts. Typing on your own still works without an account, at home as well.
Who decides who won?
The server, and not the browser of whoever typed loudest. It marks the text that was handed in against the text everybody was given. How much of it stands right decides, and a tie goes to whoever handed in first.
What name do the others see?
In class, your first name as it stands in the class list. On the weekly leaderboard, your first name and the initial of the rest, so "Sam B.". Your full name and your email address never appear on a page anybody else can see.
Can the speed be cheated?
The clock runs on the server, from the start of the race or the challenge to the moment the text is handed in. The browser sends the typed text and nothing else. A speed no human reaches is not recorded.
Does it work on Chromebooks and tablets?
On a Chromebook or laptop it works as intended. On a tablet without a keyboard you can join in, but typing on an on-screen keyboard is a different contest from typing on keys.
Does it cost anything?
Typing on your own is free. Typing together belongs to a class at a school with a school licence.
Other tools
- Timer
Timer and stopwatch with large digits and a sound at the end.
- Whiteboard
Write and draw on the board, with markers, an eraser and lines or squares.
- Times table practice
Type the answer to a times table sum and find out straight away. You choose the tables yourself, from 1 to 12.
- Hangman
Guess the word letter by letter, with English word lists.