Keyboard Town Pals Review

Keyboard Town PALS is a typing program for children. It is different from other typing programs because there is no emphasis on making mistakes (they are OK and you learn from them) or on timed typing.  They actually deactivate the delete and backspace function so you can't fix mistakes (which drives me personally crazy but I think it's a good idea.) They do not want the students to dwell on mistakes.  If you make a mistake there is no annoying sound to tell you so.  That is kind of refreshing!

One other difference is that Keyboard Town PALS teaches typing one finger at a time rather than a row at a time.  When I learned to type it was ASDFJKL; (I can still hear my typing teacher repeating that over and over.)  The students learn one finger at time up and down the keyboard.  I'm not sure if this is better but I think it is effective.

A video overview of Keyboard Town PALS:



A sample video of the first lesson:

Emma (8+) finds Sunny to be annoying and felt it a little babyish BUT she did stick with it and learn to type.

Keyboard Town PALS teaches children to type in about an hour however, that is all you learn.  There is no opportunity for practice or accuracy drills. My 12 year old son thought he would try it too but he couldn't get past Sunny and the puppets.  I do think this is fun for little kids but I think the price is a little steep for what you get.  I think this would be good for young children if you don't mind the price tag.


Keyboard Town PALS can be purchased for $39.95 on the Keyboard Town PALS website.  There is a web-based version or you can purchase the CD-ROM. See the website for other bundle deals that can include stickers and coloring books. You can read what others are saying about Keyboard Town PALS on the TOS crew blog.


disclaimer: I was given a free 6 week trial of Keyboard Town Pals in exchange for an honest review.