If you can't type, you'll never surf

Avril Jones complains at the lack of software for teaching kids the most basic keyboard skill of all

I wanted a children's typing tutorial for my daughter's birthday. My first step was to scan the mail order ads in the bloated computer magazines: I found one, called Mavis Beacon by the Software Toolworks, but only the adult version seemed to be available in the UK.

Next, I looked in the online services, where I found three shareware packages that I could download by phone and pay for after 30 days. Two were on CompuServe - TipTap v2 and Type Trek - while the conference system CIX had Typing Tutor. But these were no good for me: you cannot gift-wrap shareware.

So I went shopping, and spent a day in Sutton and Croydon without any luck. Some stores stocked Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing but only the adult version. Eventually, I bought a cheaper adult package called Typing by Expert Software (pounds 14.95). It has tips on grammar and style, plus a gallery game for practice, which might make learning more fun. It does the job, but it is not exactly what I wanted.

I find this whole situation astonishing, considering the increasing demand for computer skills at work. From PCs to electronic point of sale retail systems to building society transactions, there is no escape. Secretaries are an endangered species; most office staff do their own typing. Around a third of hi-tech companies in the UK are online. The Internet, with an estimated 31 million users, is growing by about a million per month. Soon anyone who cannot type will be almost unemployable. So, for our children to succeed, they will need good keyboard skills. That means touch typing.

Why, then, the dearth of appropriate software? A question for Microsoft: would it not have been an obvious finishing touch to include a typing tutorial in your otherwise excellent Creative Writer package? And for Mavis Beacon: are your marketing people doing their jobs? If so, why can't I find your kids product in the shops? To all software publishers: why are you not producing enough learning software for people to make the most of their computers?

A comparison test of all kids' typing tutorials would have been interesting, but how much can be said on Mavis Beacon compared with, well, Mavis Beacon? If, as a software publisher, you are seething because I missed your package, it is your fault, not mine, that I could not find it.