Widgit Software (01223 425558), 40
First Keys 2 links keyboard awareness to literacy, through structured keyboard-based skills. The program was originally designed to support early literacy, including matching, spelling and word blends, but soon found a niche in the primary keyboard skills market.
The program is still geared to literacy. It has six levels of activity - initial letter, match the text, build the text, fill the gaps, copy spell and spell from picture - and introduces graded literacy and spelling skills.
Not all these, of course, are suitable for the early years. However, the first two levels would provide useful initial letter and word-matching activities for some nursery children. The keyboard skills element of this software is a real bonus for a nursery school. In the first two levels, on-screen picture and letter cues encourage children to find initial letters (level 1) or all the letters (level 2) for a word.
Children press the appropriate keys on the computer keyboard, or click with a mouse on the one shown on screen. Visual keyboard prompts, such as highlighted or picture keys (for example an apple on the 'a' key), help children find the right key. These two activities have great potential for familiarising young children with the keyboard layout.
The software has a flexible set of options, allowing the user to turn the on-screen keyboard on or off, change the letters to upper or lower case, choose the font and control the speech settings. Numbers and space bar can be shown optionally on screen. Users can choose from an extensive dictionary of words and pictures, or make their own user lists - great for topic work.
The literacy activities and the number of levels to this software give it a long shelf life, and make it a valuable teaching tool for nursery and key stage 1 teachers.
