The best time for Keyboarding teaching is when you are doing other things! Have a couple of old keyboards handy or laminated printouts of keyboards. (Click on the picture below to see a larger view and print out.)
As you are modeling writing talk Keyboarding at the same time. "Now we will put a full stop at the end of the sentence here. How do we make a full stop on a keyboard? Which finger do we use? Pass around the keyboard and show the person next to you how you make a full stop (or a capital letter, or a comma etc)."
When you are using a computer keyboard with your Interactive whiteboard, talk about what you are doing. "I need to insert an awesome adjective before this word, so I click just before the word, I type my new word, and then I press the Space bar."
Ask questions like "How many times do I press the space bar to make a space between words?" or "What is the quick way to delete a word?" or "What fingers do I use to press the Enter key and the backspace key?"
Click on this plain keyboard, print out and photocopy. These could be placed in student's Handwriting or Spelling books
Part of the Handwriting lesson each day could include a focus word. I have made some of these up in PowerPoint, a keyword to each slide (when I have a lot more I will upload a slideshare version of it)
Students can practise that focus word on the photocopy of the keyboard after they have finished their handwriting.
The other keyboard could be used to practise spelling words...'Type out your spelling list'.
Always talk through what you are doing when you are keyboarding in front of children, don't just assume that they know!
