Top 12 Complimentary Keyboard Skills Courses Perfect for Everyone

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These free typing lessons will teach you how to type and improve your speed and accuracy. They’re geared toward every age group and situation and have different features that make them unique.

After you’ve built up some skills with these lessons, try out some free typing games for practice. Then you’ll be ready for free WPM tests to evaluate your speed.

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Track Your Progress: Typing.com

What We Like

• Track progress with points and achievements.
• Registration isn’t required.
• Good for beginners.

What We Don’t Like

• Advanced users won’t improve their skills much.

Typing.com has free typing lessons for beginner, intermediate, and advanced typists. It’s geared toward middle school kids 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 pressEnter .

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.

Visit Typing.com

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Generate Your Own Lessons: Keybr

What We Like

• Lots of customizable settings.
• Supports several keyboard layouts.
• Lets you skip learning really short words.
• Add your own words to the lessons.

What We Don’t Like

• The website has ads.
• It’s too much if you’re not interested in customizations.

This is_the_ website for typing lessons if you want total control over what you’re typing and how you learn.

For example, you can set a target WPM, set up more letters to unlock as you progress through lessons, include uppercase letters and punctuation, and set the total time you want to spend learning to type every day.

I also love that I can toggle off certain typing options that I can’t normally control in a typing class. The settings include a toggle to stop the cursor on errors and another to forgive errors; you can change these at any time. Even the whitespace, cursor shape, cursor movement, and sounds can be adjusted.

This is truly the perfect website for customizing how you learn to type. It’s also ideal if you like a little competition; all the fastest typists compete for high scores. There’s also a racing game that tests your typing skills.

Visit Keybr

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Hundreds of Lessons: TypingClub

What We Like

• Over 600 lessons.
• Take placement tests or learn in order.
• Customize the theme and other settings.
• Tools for teachers to design lessons.

What We Don’t Like

• Free version has ads.
• Can’t skip intro videos.

There are hundreds of typing lessons at TypingClub, where you’ll learn the alphabet keys, shift keys, numbers, and symbols. Some lessons 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.

Visit TypingClub

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Improve on Difficult Keys: TypingTest.com

What We Like

• Highlights keys you struggle with.
• Includes a course, tests, and games.

What We Don’t Like

• Lots of ads.

TypingTest.com has typing tests and courses, so it’s perfect for experienced and new typists. However, the main feature I want to call out is called Tricky Keys.

I struggle with certain letters, like X, that I don’t have to type often. With this website, I can choose that letter, or any letter, to practice relevant words.

If you’re not sure what your tricky keys are, there’s a short typing test you can take. When you’re finished, you’re told which keys you need more help with, and it’s then easy to start practicing them right here on this website.

Visit TypingTest.com

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Learn in Order: Ratatype

What We Like

• Several typing tips.
• 15 lessons.
• Clean, modern design.
• Courses for a variety of languages.

What We Don’t Like

• Requires a free user account.
• Can’t skip ahead to advanced lessons.

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.

Visit Ratatype

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Set Your Own Goals: Speed Typing Online

What We Like

• Set custom goals.
• Games are simple and clear.
• Create custom lessons using any letters.
• Two display options.

What We Don’t Like

• More for beginners than advanced users.

Speed Typing Online has several 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.

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

Something else I like is that the length of each lesson can be changed. I like to do the short lessons when I have little time but still want to practice, but there are other lengths, including_extra long_ .

If you register (it’s free) you’ll be able to keep track of your progress and set custom goals.

Visit Speed Typing Online

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Enter Your Own Text: Sense-Lang.org

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What We Like

• Training on a variety of keyboard styles.
• Tools to create online lessons.
• Choose from two display modes.
• You can set the lesson’s length (in letters).

What We Don’t Like

• Lessons are short; moderately skilled typists will exhaust them quickly.
• Displays distracting ads.

Sense-Lang.org has 16 free typing lessons and lets you 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.

Visit Sense-Lang.org

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Gradual Progress With Unique Settings: TypingAcademy

What We Like

• Useful settings you can customize.
• Pauses automatically if you click away.

What We Don’t Like

• Only two languages to choose from.
• Some lessons require a user account.
• Lots of popups to test your typing speed.

TypingAcademy is a slick website that’s useful for typing lessons because it can highlight the key you should focus on. There are several lessons: first-step lessons, warm-up exercises, and others in categories called Learn, Word, Finger, Hand, Practical, and Bonus.

I also like the keyboard settings you can edit, such as whether to use capital letters, how to handle mistakes, and toggles for animations, sound, live stats, and auto-pausing.

Visit TypingAcademy

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Perfect for Adults Learning to Type: GCFGlobal

What We Like

• Animated videos are simple and helpful.
• Site is clean and easy to use.

What We Don’t Like

• Can’t fast forward or rewind videos.
• Not designed for young children.

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 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.

Visit GCFGlobal

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Start From Scratch: Turtle Diary

What We Like

• Registration isn’t necessary.
• Lots of lessons.
• Ideal for any skill level.

What We Don’t Like

• Several website ads.
• Typing is naturally interrupted because you can’t fix your mistakes.

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 lettersj andf 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 of 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.

Visit Turtle Diary

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Lessons for Non-English Keyboards: Touch Typing Study

What We Like

• Extremely large number of keyboard languages offered.
• Real-time WPM speed rating.

What We Don’t Like

• Dated and busy user interface.
• No video or audio instruction; text instructions have minimal visual aids.

Touch Typing Study has 15 free keyboarding lessons available in many languages and 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.

Visit Touch Typing Study

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Easy on the Eyes: Big Brown Bear

What We Like

• Displays a single scrolling sentence instead of paragraphs.
• Move to the next level when you meet goals.
• No registration necessary.
• Includes guides and stats that you can toggle off.

What We Don’t Like

• Progress halts until you press the correct key.

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 review 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.

Visit Big Brown Bear

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