What Five-Year-Olds Can Do with Computers

This article focuses on what computer skills and activities kindergarten students should and can learn. The author states, “I believe kindergarteners can learn whatever you teach them.” First kindergarten students have to be taught basic skills to use the computer-the same skills a beginning 5th grader would learn. These skills include ability to click the mouse once while controlling its placement and another is drag and drop. After spending many 5-minute sessions practicing mouse skills, students move on to keyboarding skills. It is true that five-year-olds probably can't use the correct fingers, but they can learn where the letters are on the keyboard, and they can learn use just their thumbs for the space bar, which aligns their hands in the right areas for the natural progression of keyboarding skills. There are numerous website available to help students practice these skills such as Kinderweb, Spatial Concepts and Kindergarten Literacy and Math. Teachers should begin with activities that require one click, then go to click and drag, or use of the keyboard. By the end of the year, you will be amazed at what your five-year-olds will be able to do. Therefore, kindergarteners can use computers in the classroom -- and experience success using technology tools to learn their curriculum. “Don't let size fool you. Look at the first computers; they were huge. Now, they're tiny little things that can do a lot -- just like 5-year-olds!”

Jackson, L. (2005) What five-year-olds can do with computers. Education World.
Retrieved September 18, 2008 from
http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech209.shtml