Keyboarding for the Christian School: Review

Keyboarding for the Christian School is a basic no-frills, yet very thorough typing program. Leanne Beitel introduces the alphabet keys in the first 20 lessons with practice and built in reviews. She goes on to teach numbers and symbols in the next 9 lessons.

After teaching these basics of proper keyboard technique, Keyboarding for Christians delves into the proper formatting of lists, bibliography, reports, letters and more.

Each format is simply introduced and the technical aspects of how to format these papers and reports in Word are explained. Ms. Beitel also includes screen shots of Word to show exactly what she is talking about. This makes the instructions more clear.

The program then explains the proper formatting and use of each type of document. These instructions are followed by examples that the children are to imitate along with more specific instructions and variations when appropriate.

Ms. Beitel also has an elementary version available. It introduces the keyboard geography more slowly and clearly and only covers less formatting information.

How we used this program:

Keyboarding for Christian Schools is an eBook that comes with two different levels. One level for elementary children and one for grade 6 and up. I’m reviewing and our family used the upper level program. Amber (13) was the child chosen for these assignments.

We chose to print the pages out and use our Study Pod to hold them while Amber typed. Another option would be to open the PDF in one half of the computer screen and have a Word document open in the other half and type that way. Ms. Beitel makes a good point about typing from paper, in the ‘real world’ we will be typing from a sheet of paper, so learning to type this way makes some good sense.

Our goal was to tackle keyboarding 3 days a week. Amber simply spent 15-30 minutes working on the lesson and then moved on to her next subject. As you progress through the program the lessons are significantly longer. We used the time limit so that she wouldn’t be stuck on typing for too long.

What we thought:

This program is a very basic no frills approach to learning typing. I think for an older student this is appropriate, but a younger child may not be as motivated. Overall I really liked this program, but do not think it is for every child. Amber is serious and self-motivated and for her it is a good fit. I especially liked that it has all the instructions for formatting.

Pros:

Inexpensive
Reusable for multiple students
Gives a good foundation for typing and preparing reports, etc.
Serious and thorough for my older student
All typing examples are edifying, either scripture passages or reports on Biblical character, etc.

Cons:

No bells or whistles. Typing is not a very interesting study and is one subject that I would prefer using some games/competitions, especially with younger students.
Pushes through learning the keyboard fairly quickly.
Aesthetically unappealing

Keyboarding for Christian Schools (6th grade and up) is available in a PDF eBook for $15.95. Keyboarding for Christian Schools Elementary Version (K-5) is $12.95.

‘ve written a lot more reviews of homeschool products.

I received a complimentary copy of both levels of Keyboarding for Christians Schools as compensation for my time in writing a thoughtful review and expressing with my honest opinion of this product. This post contains affiliate links. For more information please read my disclosure page.