Third Grade · Writing · week 3

Keyboarding: Home Row Begins

Locate the home row keys (A S D F J K L ;) by feel, rest fingers correctly, and begin typing short words using proper finger placement.

Starting this week, you practice typing for 10 minutes a day. Good typing starts with the HOME ROW -- the row of keys where your fingers rest between every single keystroke.

Your left hand rests on A S D F, and your right hand rests on J K L ;. Most keyboards have a small bump on the F and J keys so your pointer fingers can find home without even looking.

Typing well is not about speed yet -- it is about always returning your fingers to the home row so you build a habit that gets faster naturally over time.

📋 For the teacher
Teach it (10–15 min):
  • Sit with your child at the keyboard and find the bumps on F and J together before typing a single letter.
  • Cover the keyboard with a cloth, or encourage your child to look at the screen instead of down at the keys, if hunt-and-peck by sight is creeping in.
  • Keep sessions to 10 minutes -- short, daily practice builds the habit far better than one long session.
  • Celebrate accuracy over speed this week; fast, wrong habits are much harder to unlearn later.
Talk about it:
  • Which keys make up the home row?
  • How can you find F and J without looking?
  • Why does typing practice happen in short daily sessions instead of one long session?

Mastery looks like: They rest their fingers correctly on the home row and can type simple home-row words (dad, sad, fall, flask) without looking down.

Common stumbles: Looking at the keyboard instead of feeling for the bumps; letting fingers drift away from home row and not returning them after each key.

Homework for this lessonType it, write it with a stylus, or print it for pencil & paper.open →
Records attendance + 15 min of Writing for this learner.
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