Typing practice for dyslexic teenagers and secondary students
LexiKey is free typing practice where the typing teaches the spelling. Words are grouped by the phonics rule behind them, spoken aloud, and brought back when a student hesitates. There is no timer and no leaderboard.
Why most typing apps do not help
By secondary school, a dyslexic student has usually been told to type their work, and often been given a typing app to get faster. Those apps are speed trainers. They drill random words or random text, count the words per minute, and put a clock on the screen.
Put a countdown in front of the slowest typist in the room and you rebuild the thing that made them hate spelling in the first place. The alternative is usually a spelling game drawn for a seven-year-old, which a fourteen-year-old will not open twice.
Neither fixes the actual problem, which is that the student does not know which letters go in the word. Speed does not teach that.
What LexiKey does instead
- Words grouped by rule. 1,114 words sorted into 108 phonics groups following the Orton-Gillingham approach. A session drills one pattern, so getting "shine" right helps with "stripe".
- Every word spoken aloud. Each word has a recorded voice, British or American, rather than a robotic browser voice that mangles half of them. Students can type the word they see, or switch to dictation and type what they hear.
- Hesitation counts. A word typed correctly after a pause of more than a second and a half has not been learned yet. It goes into a review set and comes back in later sessions until it is right three times running.
- Starts at the right level. A short placement test finds which patterns are already solid, so a sixteen-year-old is not made to type "cat".
- Nothing childish on the screen. A word, a sentence that uses it, and the letters filling in as they are typed. No points, no streaks, no mascot.
Built to be adjusted
Font, text size and letter spacing can all be changed. There is a high contrast option and dark mode. The voice speed is adjustable. Nothing flashes and nothing is timed, so a student can work at whatever pace suits them, including on a bad day.
What it does not do
- It does not teach touch typing. There is no finger placement guide and no words-per-minute score.
- It cannot diagnose dyslexia. That needs a qualified assessor.
- It only covers spelling. Not reading, comprehension or essay writing.
- It will not nag a student into coming back. There is no reward loop, on purpose.
Where to start
Take the placement test, then practice the first pattern it suggests for ten minutes. If the student has a learning support teacher or tutor, the list of patterns that keep coming back is worth showing them.
Questions people ask
- Is LexiKey suitable for teenagers, or only young children?
- The screen shows a word, a sentence and nothing else: no cartoons, no mascot, no points. The word list runs from three-letter words up to words like 'receive' and 'wonderful', and the placement test skips what a student already knows.
- Does LexiKey teach touch typing?
- No. It does not teach finger placement or measure words per minute. It is spelling practice that happens to use a keyboard. A student who needs to learn to touch type should do a typing course as well; the two do not conflict.
- What does a dyslexic student need to use it?
- A web browser and a physical keyboard. There is nothing to install and no account is needed to start. A free account saves progress between sessions and devices.
- How long should a session be?
- About ten minutes a day. Spelling is a memory problem, and memory responds to short, frequent practice better than one long session a week. A session covers one spelling pattern.
- Is it free?
- Yes. There is nothing to buy. The free version is the whole tool, for students, parents and schools.