Teach students the home row. The home row consists of the keys the students' fingers should come to rest on to give them best coverage of the keyboard and easiest access to all the keys. Starting with the left hand, the index finger should be on the F key, the middle finger on D, the ring finger on S and the little finger on the A key. For the right hand, the index finger should be on the J key, the middle finger on K, the ring finger on L and the little finger on the semicolon key. Encourage the students to notice that the F and J keys have ridges on them to help them find the home row without having to look down. Thumbs should rest on the space bar.
Help students master the home row. Students must next learn which fingers are responsible for typing which keys. They must also train themselves to return all their fingers to the home row when they are not pressing another key. Go through each finger in turn and read out which keys each finger is responsible for, asking the students to type each key with the correct finger as you call them out.
Practice with the index fingers. The two index fingers are responsible for the most keys. The left hand's index finger should type the keys 4, 5, R, T, F, G, V and B. The right hand's index finger should type the keys 6, 7, Y, U, H, J, N and M. Call out these letters and numbers a few times while the students type them with the correct index fingers.
Practice with the other fingers. Teach the students which keys their other fingers are responsible for and go through the same exercises, calling out the letters and asking the students to type those letters for a few repetitions with the corresponding fingers. The left little finger operates the keys 1, Q, Z, and the Caps Lock, Shift and Tab keys as well as the letter A. The left ring finger is responsible for the keys 2, W and X as well as S, and the left middle finger operates 3, E and C as well as D. The right little finger is responsible for the keys 0, P, question mark, hyphen, plus sign, quotation marks, Enter and the right-hand Shift key, as well as the semicolon key. The right ring finger is responsible for the keys 9, O and the period, as well as the L key, while the right middle finger operates 8, I and the comma, as well as the K key. The thumbs operate the space bar.
Start blind typing. Learning which fingers are responsible for pressing which keys is an important foundation for learning to type real words without looking at the keyboard. Put students into pairs and ask them to take turns holding a piece of cardboard over the other person's hands so he can't see the keyboard. You could also put stickers on each keyboard's keys so the students cannot see the letters written on them. Print out sheets of paper with paragraphs of writing on them for the students to transcribe.
Increase typing speed. As the students become faster and more proficient at typing using the home row, give them timed transcriptions to encourage them to increase their typing speed. Make sure you encourage accuracy as well as speed. You could do this by giving students an overall score for each completed transcription, taking marks off for mistakes.