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Learning to type with accuracy and speed has clear practical benefits, but there's more to it than that. Typing lessons help students with spelling and word decoding, and can free up cognitive space for students to focus on what they want to say. While keyboarding may not be the most exciting class for students, online programs have evolved over the years, making a skill that can feel rote more entertaining and meaningful. To help you choose the best one for your classroom, we explored in-depth some of the best typing tools on the market and selected the best of the best below.
Please note: Common Sense Education is a nonprofit with a strong commitment to an unbiased, in-depth editorial process. Our ratings and reviews of learning media aren't influenced by developers or funders, and we never receive payments or other compensation for our reviews.
Our selections
Best overall
This superb tool has great guided lessons, engaging assessments, and real-time feedback.
A fantastic typing program that has it all. There are brief speed and accuracy assessments, fun videos in between lessons, and instant feedback for students. TypingClub has many exciting courses, including animated-story lesson plans that allow students to animate their own stories. There's a ton of data about student performance and teachers can turn on accessibility options like voice-over, font sizes, screen readers, and more. TypingClub's game structure, feedback, and badge rewards make it our top choice for an addicting experience.
Runner-up
Especially with a paid subscription, an engaging way to boost typing skills and track student progress.
Typing.com is a great free alternative to some of the other tools on this list. One way the program stands out is the departure from the traditional home-row instruction; instead, Typing.com begins with F, J, and space keys, moves on to U, R, and K, and then adds more keys. Performance data, positive encouragement, and robust customization options round out the experience. Typing.com also has an abundance of extra lessons While the site's free, there's a tradeoff for distracting ads. A subscription removes the ads and gives teachers unlimited data retention.
Other recommendations
Best choice for school- or district-wide use
This fun, comprehensive curriculum goes beyond teaching touch-typing into computer use and professional document creation.
In a close race for the top spot, EduTyping just missed the cut. It's not designed for an individual teacher's use, but it has everything a school or district would need to introduce a comprehensive keyboarding program. The thorough curriculum includes extensive customizable lessons, reinforcements, and timed tests. Entertaining games reinforce lessons, real-time feedback provides accuracy and speed scores, and a robust dashboard helps with goal-setting and grading.
Great game for practice
Great for practicing touch-typing skills, this adventure game draws players in with a slowly revealed backstory.
For a unique take on typing, look no further than Epistory. This adventure game has players type to activate objects or fight monsters as they move through a world and progress through a story. The level of difficulty adjusts to players' skill, and the game keeps track of accuracy and speed. Kids can even practice in multiple languages! It's not specifically created for the classroom, and there are no beginner lessons, but teachers can still use Epistory to add some variety to typing practice.
Good option for touchscreens
While it lacks comprehensive lessons, this app can still help students type more quickly and accurately.
The options above help students with touch-typing, but TapTyping assists students who type on an iOS touchscreen, like an iPhone or iPad. While there aren't a ton of lessons available and it's not as comprehensive as some of the other tools, TapTyping has a unique feature: A heat map signals red when a student’s finger misses the correct key and green when they hit the right one. This novel feedback method can inspire students to keep improving.
Compare the tools
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| Grades | Pre-K–12 | K–12 | K–12 | 6–12 | 4–12 |
| Price | Free to try | Free, Paid | Free to try, Paid | Paid | Free to try, Paid |
| Privacy | |||||
| Platforms | Web, iPad, Mac | Web | Web | Mac, Windows | iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch |
| Pros | A huge number of digestible lessons combined with inventive gameplay, an intuitive skills progression, and useful statistics. | Helpful performance data gives teachers and students a clear sense of progress. Games and choose-your-own-adventure stories keep it fun. | Thorough and customizable K–12 curriculum, attractive design, full Computer Applications unit, and useful data for teachers. | Learn to type faster through timed events that test skill and accuracy. | Colorful heat map and other forms of feedback keep students aiming for improvement. |
| Cons | Without supervision, students could cheat on lessons by looking at the keyboard. Free version has targeted ads. | Distracting banner ads mar the free version; most of the best features are only available with paid subscription. | Long list of lessons might intimidate some students. Not designed for individual users. | It's repetitive by design, and the story may not be enough to hold students attention. | Small number of lessons. Leaderboard with 100+ words-per-minute typists could be discouraging. |
| Bottom Line | This superb tool has great guided lessons, engaging assessments, and real-time feedback. | Especially with a paid subscription, an engaging way to boost typing skills and track student progress. | This fun, comprehensive curriculum goes beyond teaching touch-typing into computer use and professional document creation. | Great for practicing touch-typing skills, this adventure game draws players in with a slowly revealed backstory. | While it lacks comprehensive lessons, this app can still help students type more quickly and accurately. |
| Read our review | Read our review | Read our review | Read our review | Read our review |
How We Rate
Our recommendations are based on a research-backed rubric we use to rate apps and websites. Here are just a few sample criteria from this rubric:
About Our Review Process
Common Sense Education is editorially independent, nonprofit, and research-backed. Our team of editors and reviewers—all current or former educators and/or researchers—look at dozens of products before choosing a select few for deeper evaluation and consideration. Each product goes through a rigorous evaluative process by both a reviewer and an editor. This involves hands-on testing (including in some cases in classrooms or other real scenarios), rating according to our research-backed rubric, communication with developers and other educators, and finally a written review. We also consult our vast library of from-the-field reviews submitted by practicing educators. Learn more or request a product review.
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