Free Children

This is a simple small child's program, created with the visual programming language Delphi. The aim of the program is to help young children to practise with the keyboard and learn where the different letter keys are.

The program can be used in one of two modes: LETTERS or WORDS and the user can also choose which row or rows of keys to practise as well as the number of letters or words in the sequence. A screen-shot of the program in the LETTERS mode is shown below.

The screen-shot shows the user needs to press the letter O key to get the next letter in the sequence and avoid a miss. A missed key is indicated by a buzz and a correct key by a whoop and a brief appearance of a HIT panel! The position of the correct key is indicated by the red coloured letter in the screen keyboard and 11 seconds have passed so far in the sequence. Letters from the top row of keys has been selected and also a random sequence of 10 letters. When the correct key is hit, the next letter in the sequence appears automatically in the yellow panel. Each sequence of letters is chosen at random.

In the screen-shot below the user has just finished a sequence of letters, having pressed all of the correct keys in 17 seconds with no wrong keys pressed (misses). The top row of keys only has been selected and also the 10 letters sequence.

The user can now use the mouse to click the REPEAT button to practise the same sequence of letters and try and beat the 17 seconds best time so far or can click the START button to start a new sequence. The other options that can be chosen are letters from a different row of keys (or from all three rows) and a longer sequence of 20 or 30 letters.

The WORDS mode is shown in action in the screen-shot below. The number of words in the series on the line can be chosen as either 3, 4 or 5 and there are 5 series to complete in a sequence. The words in each series are chosen at random unless the REPEAT button has been clicked to repeat the previous word sequence. The words to type appear on the top yellow panel and as the user types the words, the letters typed (if they are correct) appear in the bottom yellow panel. The position of the next letter (or press of the space bar) on the keyboard is shown in red on the screen keyboard. If the wrong key is pressed, there is a buzz and nothing happens on-screen until the correct key is pressed.

The screen-shot shows the user trying to beat their best time of 39 seconds with a repeat sequence and is half way through the second 3 word series with no missed keys. In the screen-shot, the words are formed from letters from the first and second rows of letter keys on the keyboard with 3 words in a series. At the end of a correctly typed series of words the next word series in the sequence appears automatically in the top yellow panel. The orange panel shows how many word series have been completed of the five in a sequence.