UltraKey Online Family Subscription {Review}

Sharing is caring!

With their Ultrakey Online Family Subscription, Bytes of Learning provides fun, engaging media-rich instruction for learning how to type. This state-of-the-art program engages users with its step by step instruction, easy voice commands and friendly reminders about techniques. All of this is done in a fun engaging way that causes users to want to keep returning.

When I was given the opportunity to review this product I jumped on it. My three oldest children are all taking a writing class this year that requires them to type their assignments before turning them in. While my two oldest have become quite proficient at the “peck” method, Olivia my nine year old usually dictates her papers to me while I type them out. While I don’t mind a little extra mommy and me time with Olivia, and my two older kids see nothing wrong with their method, I wanted them to become more efficient with their typing skills. 

I had this same resolution last year when I added a different typing program to their curriculum. It worked okay and taught them finger placement but they quickly became bored with it and found typing time to be a chore. After a while we all lost interest and went back to our old ways.

Why is UltraKey Online different?

What I appreciate about the program is that it takes a holistic approach to teaching typing. It’s more than just about how many words per minute you can type.  UltraKey Online preps you first by teaching good posture.  There are short videos that explain how you should sit and what your hand position should be while you type.

Then it moves you on to finger placement, where you will do a few drills to get you accustomed to the keyboard and where the home key letters are.

Set a Goal:

Before you get started on typing you have the opportunity to take a skills assessment, and set a goal. All of my children opted to let the program choose a goal for them. Which typically was about 1-2 wpm higher than what they could do.  The account administrator also has the ability to set goals for their students as well.

Just out of curiosity, I took the assessment and ended up with {not too bad} score of 92 wpm. Of course the program thought there was room for improvement, so it doesn’t let you off the hook if you already have semi-fantastic typing skills. 😉

Lessons: 

As you move through the lessons you get a visual of where you are and where you are going. Each lesson has only a few letters to master and then there is a skill check. If they pass the skill check with their speed and accuracy goals then they move on to the next lesson. The program won’t let you skip ahead until you have completed each lesson.

Games:

And just for fun, when your student wants a break from the lessons they can jump over to the Game Zone. The only warning here, is that they might be practicing skills that they haven’t yet learned so that could be frustrating for some students. My children enjoyed the challenge and it gave them extra practice.

My Reports: 

Besides telling my children it was typing time, I didn’t do a lot of supervision. The program does a great job walking them through each lesson with voice and visuals. But when I did want to check on their progress I could hop on over to the progress report page and see how they were doing.

The best part of all of this, is that when Olivia needed to type her most recent writing paper, she didn’t need my help until the very end when “she got tired of typing”

We have yet to make it to the end of the lessons and receive our diploma, so we will continue to work toward that goal. And although I have the two oldest girls working through this program, I have yet to convince Zack that his method is not superior to being able to actually type correctly. One day…

If I haven’t sold you on this great program yet, you’re going to want to check out some of the other Review Crew Reviews, because really- the UltraKey Online Family Subscription is a great deal! You can have up to 8 family members on it, each of them will have their own log in and can track their own progress. If you are tired of other programs not working or being disappointed in the free typing programs out there, then you are in for a very pleasant surprise with this program from Bytes of Learning.

A few tips and tricks before you get started: 

Take some time to get to know the program. At first glance it can seem confusing but it’s actually very user friendly. The hardest part was getting everyone set up, and that took all of 5 minutes.

Watch the introductory videos with your children. Especially the posture one, that way when you see them doing something wrong you can help them by reminding them of the correct way to sit or hold their hands.

Practice as much as possible. The faster they can move through the lessons and meet those goals with accuracy and speed, the more successful they will be.