I thinking typing is a good skill for kids, since we can foresee a lot of computer use by the current generation of kids. While we give drona's questions some more thought - here's a link to a free online program that does a good job of teaching typing (with several levels of lessons of varying complexity).

One hears off and on about kids these days not learning cursive hand-writing well these days, or schools not placing much emphasis on hand-writing at all. Ditto for lack of emphasis on spelling.

"Let kids focus on the creative aspects of writing without getting bogged down by details such as spelling and handwriting, especially when they have to turn in the final version typed out in Word which has a spell-checker" is the view adopted by several urban, progressive schools where children use word processors like MS Word. read more