Keyboard Town PAL - TOS Review

What is Keyboard PAL?

Keyboard Town PAL is a typing program which is meant to teach your child to type with less than an hour of practice a day.

How much does it cost?

$35 for a CD-ROM

$30 for a web-based version.

The program is available in English, Spanish, and French and works on both Mac and Windows.

They also offer additional products at reasonable costs.

Who is it for?

It is geared toward 7-10 years old but is is said to be workable with younger ones as well.

Our opinion:

Depending on your child, one might find the program very attractive or quite childish. The way it works is that there is a little puppet like character (which is the “PAL sunny”) that guides and teaches the child the proper placement of the fingers on the keyboard for good and efficient typing.

It turns the keyboard into a city with each line of letters of the keyboard being a location in the city. It teachers the proper finger positionning using story lines. The concept is well thought out and in my opinion ingenious. The method of teaching is repetition to mastery. This works for some kids and does not with others. Each time it teaches a finger placement it has the child press that letter over and over again before moving on to the next letter.

Unfortunately I cannot testify of the efficiency of the program as my boys did not enjoy the program from the get go. The repetition did not work for them, they wanted to move on quicker. On top of that, they were not too fond of the pal character. I can see how this can work for a younger child, but as the child gets older it would really depend on the particular child.

You can read some more inforamtion on the method and philosophy of the program on their website here.

To see what other crewmates have to say make sure to check the TOS Homeschool Crew blog review post.

Disclosure: I was offered a 6 weeks membership to Keyboard pal in exchange for an honest review.

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