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"Nessy Fingers Touch Typing" CD Released
Nessy are proud to announce the release of their eagerly-awaited new software title, "Nessy Fingers Touch Typing".
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April 3, 2008 (FPRC) -- A Bristol company is quietly producing some excellent educational software. Now the latest innovation is ‘Nessy Fingers’, a program that inspires children to develop keyboard skills. The program has been developed in collaboration between the Bristol based Net Educational Systems (Nessy) Ltd and double BAFTA Award winners, Complete Control Ltd.
Creative director of Nessy, Mike Jones, said “children learn more effectively when they are enjoying themselves so we have tried to give the whole program a great sense of fun. We have had great success in our trials with one child reaching 30 words per minute and 100% accuracy in only a week.”
Nessy Fingers includes games with penguins, gorillas, dragons and knights. Features include typing to your own mp3 music and practising with your own words to improve spelling.
Nessy Fingers aids rapid learning by using a fresh, innovative approach to learning the keyboard. Instead of grinding through dozens of lessons Nessy Fingers has just 5 lessons. The incredible speed of learning is possible by introducing keys in the sequence of the alphabet. The lesson narration even includes visual jokes to break it up. Typing practice comes through the 9 motivating games and collecting a mountain full of trophies, medals and awards in the Hall of Fame. Accuracy is encouraged by unlocking new characters for ‘Perfect Typing’.
Unlike other touch typing tutors, players are free to navigate through all games and lessons. As they explore the land of Ness they visit locations such as the Dungeon of Doom, to battle dragons, skeletons and ghosts. On Monkey Island players enter a penalty shootout with Burt the boss gorilla. At Penguin Mountains they crush Rocky under a giant snowball.
Nine difficulty levels, ranging from Tortoise to Lightning fingers, enable those with limited keyboard knowledge to succeed and avoid the frustration of failure.
Speed and accuracy targets are set by the players’ own personal best in a non-competitive game where you swim the Nessy character.
Nessy Fingers is especially helpful for dyslexics. A multisensory learning environment has been created in collaboration with specialist teachers at the Bristol Dyslexia Centre. It includes a wide range of options to change settings. The program can be tailored to meet individual needs with the option to change screen and font size, background and text colour, game speed etc. keyboard shortcuts provide a refreshing alternative to mouse navigation.
Nessy Fingers will improve spelling, reading and basic punctuation. It does not use nonsense words but 233 lists of over 10,000 curriculum words in a progressive learning structure.
Rest periods are encouraged when the ‘Take a Break’ icon lights up in which the Nessy character suggests exercises called ‘Kung Fu Fingers’. When used as part of a typing club or course, the printable worksheets and group games help reinforce learning.
Special Features:
• Includes peelable stickers to cover the keys
• Colour coding to aid fast learning
• 9 fantastic games
• Swim as Nessy to set personal speed and accuracy targets
• Type using your own words and sentences
• Over 10,000 curriculum words
• A wide range of options to personalise settings
• A multisensory learning environment designed by specialist teachers
• Printable wall charts, worksheets and board games
• 5 multisensory lessons introduce keys alphabetically
• Type to your own music
• Perfect typing unlocks new characters
The educational advisory charity Ability Net, have identified development of keyboard skills as being especially important for children with specific learning difficulties (dyslexia), those who have difficulties with handwriting, co-ordination or dyspraxia.
Computers can be a vital aid for dyslexics but if spatial awareness is weak then finding keys will be difficult. Without good keyboard familiarity using a computer can remain a slow and frustrating experience and the vital benefits a computer can provide for a dyslexic will be limited.
Nessy Fingers is ideal for students who have specific learning difficulties (dyslexia and dyspraxia):
• 9 levels of difficulty allow all abilities to succeed
• Keys are taught alphabetically, reinforcing the sequence and giving a logical learning structure
• Multisensory lessons use both text and audio instructions with a picture of the keyboard on screen
• Carefully selected fonts address issues of orientation and directional confusion
• Display options: six colour schemes for words and background using colours found most helpful by those experiencing ‘page-glare’
Age: 7-14 years Key stages 2-3
PC CD-ROM, Mac download
Setting: School or home
Number of interactive lessons: 5
Number of games: 9, short games 2-3 minutes duration
Average length of lesson: 3-10 minutes
£17.01 (£19.99 inc. vat) single user version
£75 (£88.13 inc. vat) 5 user network version (larger licences available)
For additional information, or to purchase Nessy Fingers Touch Typing or any other Nessy product, please contact Net Educational Systems Ltd by phone on 0117 9239777 or by email at info@nessy.co.uk.
Send an email to Richard Hewitt of Net Educational Systems Ltd
0117 9239777
Keywords:
nessy, dyslexia, touch typing
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