12 Best Free Typing Lessons for Kids and Adults

Tracking Your Progress: Typing.com

Typing.com has free typing lessons for beginner, intermediate, and advanced typists. It's geared towards middle school kids all the way up to adults. You can jump to any practice level that you want, at any time.

During each lesson, there's nothing else to distract you from your typing except for a virtual keyboard showing where the letters are and which fingers to use. When done, you get to see your speed, accuracy, and the time it took you to finish, and you don't even need to lift your hands off the keyboard to move on to the next lesson; just press Enter.

Free registration isn't required, but with it, you can track your progress and earn awards.

There's a Teacher's portal available for educators to manage and track the progress of their students as they complete lessons.

Hundreds of Lessons: TypingClub

There are hundreds of typing lessons at TypingClub, where you'll learn the alphabet keys, shift key, numbers, and symbols. There are also lessons that focus especially on speed. You can jump to any of them whenever you like, or you can take placement tests to prove your skills.

While you go through these, you'll be able to view your speed and accuracy. If you sign up for a free account, you can keep track of your progress, record your highest WPM of all time, and review some other stats.

Teachers can monitor their students' progress, customize the lessons, and even manage multiple classes.

There's a paid edition that has additional features and no ads.

Learn in Order: Ratatype

There are over a dozen free typing lessons at Ratatype, and before starting them, you're given several tips for how to sit at your computer, which is something most of these sites pass over.

Something unique about this keyboarding lesson website is that if you make too many mistakes during a lesson, you're forced to start over. Once you make a reasonable amount of typos, or none at all, you can move forward with more lessons.

You get to see your typo count and WPM while you're typing, and even compete with others in a high score list.

Set Your Own Goals: Speed Typing Online

Speed Typing Online has 17 classic lessons that include learning all the letters on the keyboard and then testing your skills through reviews. Then you can move on to the advanced lessons, where you start stringing those letters together to make words. 

Every result you see on these typing lessons can be shared via a special URL so that you can show off your score. For example, there are sets of lessons for just the top row, home row, and bottom row, or you can type using the whole keyboard.

If you register (it's free) you'll be able to keep track of your progress and set custom goals. You'll also get access to free typing tests and games. 

Lessons for Kids: Dance Mat Typing

Dance Mat Typing uses wacky animal characters and colorful games to make their free typing lessons fun for elementary-aged children.

You're taken through four levels, each with three different stages. This helps break the lessons into small, manageable chunks so that learning to type isn't so overwhelming.

No registration or login is required, so you can start right away.

Enter Your Own Text: Sense-Lang.org

Sense-Lang.org has 16 free typing lessons, along with a feature that allows you to use your own text to practice.

Each lesson features an animated keyboard, making it easy to get a visual on how you should be typing and what you need to do to make fewer mistakes. You also get real-time typing stats for your WPM, time, and accuracy during the lessons.

Teachers can create online classes, assign lessons, and get updates on the progress of their students. They're available in several languages and for international keyboards as well.

Perfect for Adults Learning to Type: GCFGlobal

GCFGlobal has free typing lessons that are geared towards adults with no or little typing skills. For each lesson, you have the option of learning the keys or jumping right into practicing them.

It's a great program to start out on, but since they don't give you an update on how fast or accurate you're typing, we suggest moving on to another site after you get the basic skills down.

Start From Scratch: Turtle Diary

This is another website that lets you learn how to type in order, from the very beginning. To give you an idea of what that means: the very first task in the first lesson has you type the letters j and f over and over.

The good thing is that this isn't just geared toward kids or adults new to typing. There are 51 total typing lessons here, categorized as beginner, intermediate, and advanced lessons. If you go in order, you'll type a couple letters only and then move on to uppercase letters and symbols, short paragraphs, and finally a combination of everything.

Like most of these sites, during each typing lesson, you can monitor your typing speed, accuracy, and time. The hands you see over the keyboard can be toggled on and off easily at any time.

There are also multiplayer typing games that help you put into use what you've learned.

Lessons for Non-English Keyboards: Touch Typing Study

Touch Typing Study has 15 free typing lessons available in many languages and keyboard layouts, plus some games and speed tests.

Each lesson is broken down into topics so that you can easily see what's coming next or skip to another section if you feel confident in your skills.

While you're typing, you'll be able to view your errors, speed, and time spent on the lesson.

Easy on the Eyes: Big Brown Bear

Big Brown Bear has over a dozen free typing lessons that take you through the process of learning all the keys on the keyboard. Just pick which letter to be reviewed on to get started

Something we like about this website is how the words come across the screen. Instead of seeing them as a paragraph like you normally would when reading, the words are on a single line, and they pass through the center of the screen so that you don't have to move your eyes.

However, with these lessons, you must correct your mistakes before you can continue typing, which may or may not be something you want.

During each lesson, you're able to view your speed, accuracy, and time.

Customizable Options: FreeTypingGame.net

There are 30 free lessons here that tackle the keyboard two letters or two characters at a time.

Before the lesson, you get to set a WPM goal, choose whether you want the keyboard and hands shown while you're learning, adjust the lesson time and font size, and decide on some other settings. After a short introduction to the new keys, you get to begin your lesson.

This test is a bit more natural than some tests because it supports backspace, so you can fix your spelling mistakes if you want to.

The remaining time, accuracy percentage, and WPM are shown at the bottom of each typing lesson. At the end is your overall stats and an indicator of whether you met your goal.