Typing as a high school elective: how to give homeschool credit

Last reviewed October 24, 2026

If your teen never learned to type properly, high school is a fine time to fix it, and you can count the work toward their transcript. Here's a practical way to set it up.

This is general information, not legal advice. Homeschool rules vary by state, so check your own state's requirements.

How much credit is typing worth?

When you teach a course yourself, you decide the credit. HSLDA's guidance on logging hours suggests, for an elective (anything outside the core academic subjects), 60 or more hours for half a credit and 120 or more hours for a full credit.

Typing alone rarely fills 120 hours, and most teens won't need that much typing practice. That's why many families make it a half-credit course, or a broader "Keyboarding and Computer Skills" course worth half or a full credit.

What to include

A solid half-credit course might look like this:

Those ranges add up to about 51 to 68 hours, not a sure 60. Log at least 60 actual hours for a half credit. Adjust the mix to your teen. A kid who already types well can spend more time on documents. A beginner will spend more on the basics.

How to log the hours

Keep it simple. A notebook or a spreadsheet with four columns works:

Log at least 60 actual hours for a half credit. About 30 minutes, 5 days a week, reaches 60 hours in roughly 24 weeks. Shorter sessions take most of a school year or longer. HSLDA notes that logging more than the threshold doesn't earn more credit. It just shows they passed it.

How to grade it

Pick a few things you can actually measure:

• Technique (30%). Correct fingers, eyes on the screen, good posture. You'll know by watching.
• Accuracy and speed (30%). Record a short typing test every two weeks. Note both WPM and accuracy. Typing.com, for example, counts one "word" as five keystrokes, spaces and punctuation included.
• Projects (30%). A formatted research paper, a letter, a résumé.
• Log completion (10%). Did they keep up with their hours?

Set speed goals that fit your teen. Steady improvement with high accuracy matters more than hitting a particular number.

What to call it on the transcript

Clear, plain names work best:

• "Keyboarding" (0.5 credit)
• "Keyboarding and Computer Applications" (0.5 or 1.0 credit)
• "Computer Skills" (0.5 credit)

Keep a short course description in your records. List the topics from the table above, the resources you used, and how you graded it.

Tips for teens

• Let them start where they are. A short placement check on day one shows whether to begin at the home row or skip ahead.
• Use their real work. Typing up history notes or a lab report counts as practice once the basics are in place.
• Fix hunt-and-peck habits gently. Teens who peck fast often feel slower at first with ten fingers. That dip is temporary.

Where Home Row Mojo fits

We built Home Row Mojo for our own younger kids, so the look is playful: a nostalgic 1993 computer lab. Teens who need to start from scratch can still use the guided lessons and drills to learn the keyboard. Many teens will find the bonus lessons especially useful. They cover the number pad and the full keyboard, including Insert, Delete, Page Up and Down, Ctrl, and the F-keys, with a Mac and PC toggle. Those are keys a lot of typing courses skip. The number pad lessons only work on a keyboard with a number pad. If your keyboard doesn't have one, an inexpensive plug-in USB number pad works. Many Chromebooks don't have the full-keyboard lesson keys, so if your teen is on a Chromebook, try the free version first.

You can try it free as a guest. If it fits, the full version is $29 once for the whole family, so younger siblings can use it too.