Doorway Online

Free accessible educational activities that learners will find easy to use independently.

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News

Doorway Text Type 3 is complete!

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We have completed Text Type 3, the touch typing tutor for visually impaired learners that should suit anyone learning to touch type.
The new features are aimed at learners with very low vision:

  • Text to Speech is available for almost all on-screen text
  • TAB, Space and Enter can be used to access most functions
  • Newly recorded female and male voices are used to prompt the next keypress and warn of an incorrect keypress.
  • Single-Handed Typing is now included in Text Type 3

We invite you to take a look at Text Type 3.



Text Type 3 phase 2, has been available on the site for over a year and will be available for three more months. It can be found here.

Doorway Activity Pack is Now Available For Free Download!

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With the decline of Adobe Flash, soon some of our activities may not continue to function. The following activities have been renewed and will continue to work: Text Type 3, Speller 2, Letter & Number Formation, Cashing In and the First Phonics suite.

Fortunately, the downloadable version of our remaining activities should continue to run on Windows computers. All of our activities can be downloaded for free below!

Doorway Activity Pack v4
Size: 68.7 MB
Version: 4.0
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Download

The file is zipped and will need to be extracted before use (how to extract/unzip a file). For installation on a school network, a request will need to be made to the network administrator.

We would appreciate it if you would fill in the form notifying us of
your download and letting us know where you intend to install the
Doorway Activity Pack; in which schools or authorities.

Alternatively, to find out how to obtain the Doorway Activity Pack on a USB pen-drive (Windows users only) please use this contact form.

Doorway Activities – Will they work on your equipment?

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Doorway Activities were originally developed in Adobe Flash. This was a good way to develop such activities up to eight or ten tears or so ago. However, Apple decided not to support Flash and later tablets entered the scene. There was a solution in Puffin Browser. Our older activities still work on PCs and Android devices with Puffin Browser installed. This is no longer available on the Apple Store.

We have been able to re-code these activities to work with almost all computers and devices;

  • Text Type 3
  • Speller 2
  • Letter & Number Formation
  • Cashing In
  • First Phonics suite, incorporating First Sounds; First Words; First Blends; First Digraphs; More Digraphs; First Blends
First Phonics thumbnail image
First Phonics. The suite of activities now working with most devices.

These have been developed in the modern format of html5 and JavaScript and there are no restrictions to their working on browsers on PCs and Macs. They also work on tablets although on iPads they do not enter full-screen mode as they do on Android tablets. For the remaining activities, we hope to convert more.

In the meantime, if you want to access the Flash-based activities on this site; – Do not use Chrome Browser. Firefox is more friendly to Flash-based activities. If you are using a PC you can buy the Doorway Activity USB pen-drive and install the activities directly to your PC, Pendrive or Network, or even run them directly from the USB stick. It’s available now at £ 10, below cost price from [email protected] There is no copyright restriction any more.

The Doorway Activity Pack, now on USB pendrive.
The Doorway Activity Pack, now on USB pen-drive. All the Flash-based activities from the website should work on all Windows PCs. This includes networked PCs, but installation may require a network administrator.

We expect that you’ll be able to download these activities directly from this site before too long. Watch this space ……………..

Doorway Text Type 3 and Touch Typing

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We are working on the final phase of Text Type 3, the touch typing tutor that can take learners from the home keys to mastery of the whole keyboard and typing sentences. This activity is designed to be as accessible as possible to visually impaired learners as possible. The final version should be accessible even to blind learners, after some initial guidance.

Text Type 3 - screenshot

Learning to touch type.
There are some things that you need to know before supporting a learner on the road to touch typing

  • Touch Typing is just that. There should be no keeking at the keyboard. Do not look at the keyboard or your hands, all the information you need is on the screen in Doorway Touch Type.
  • Touch typing is a motor learning experience. This means not looking at your hands. The best way to ensure this is to cover the learner’s hands with a light cloth. If you truly learn to touch type this skill will last a lifetime like riding a bike. Even learners with mild VI can be tempted to peep.
  • Motor learning is a very powerful tool and such skills will remin with you thoughout life. However you need to be careful. An incorrect  motor habit is very hard to correct. So get it right from the start.
  • You need to get into a comfortable position in which the hands fall naturally onto the keyboard. The surface on which the keyboard stands must not be too high. The wrists may rest on pads if you are typing for a long time.
  • A Touch Typing programme is a series of lessons starting with the home keys (A S D F J K L ; ) and leading to full mastery of the keyboard. Moving on to the next exercise without sufficient mastery of the current exercise, will only lead to disappointment later on. A score of 90% or one error in every ten keypresses should be the minimum achievement before moving on. 94% or better is our recommended level of accuracy before moving on.
  • Learners benefit from regular practice. Little and often is best.
  • Accuracy should come before speed. Start slowly. If you can type at a regular pace, almost to a beat, it will help you achieve a high speed.
  • Doorway Text Type is a series of exercises that, followed properly, can lead to a high rate of accuracy in typing and a good rate in terms of words per minute. In handwritten exams with a lot of writing involved. Writing at a rate of 20 words per minute is an arduous task. For a typist that is a low rate of entry. A rate of 40 words per minute is entirely realistic for a sixteen-year-old typist coming up to exams.

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Our General Data Protection Policy

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Doorway Online does not collect any information about users.


Text Type 3 stores the results from a user’s last session on the computer it is accessed from, but we cannot see that data.

We use Google Analytics to give us usage figures for our activities. This is anonymised data that allows us to see which countries users are accessing our site from, which activities they access and allows us to check for bandwidth issues. It is not possible for us to identify a school or an individual user. We also get anonymised data from Google ads. These adverts are usually blocked in schools.

If you communicate with us by emailing [email protected], our mail server may store your email address. However, we will not use this address to communicate with you except regarding the issue you contacted us about. Your email address will be shared with no other organisation.
Email addresses will be deleted from our mail server when we no longer require them and in any case, two years after our last contact with you. You may send an email to that address asking for your emails and email address to be deleted.

Student Record Sheets for Doorway Speller

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A teacher in East Lothian has made up some very useful record sheets for students to keep track of their progress through the Speller levels. He has been generous in making them available to all.

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Download Printable Student Record Sheets

They are in a compressed zip file which you may have to open using WinZip.

Thanks again to Darren Donnelly, PT Support For Learning, Musselburgh Grammar School for compiling these word lists.

Coming Soon – Doorway Activity Cost Free Downloads

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The off-line version of Doorway activities for Windows PCs or laptops which had poor or no internet access has been the Doorway Activity Pack CD. This installs the activities onto your hard disc, server or pen-drive. Typically these were licensed by a school or LEA. We are no longer charging for this, beyond the costs of materials and copying.

We will be making the Doorway Activities freely downloadable. We must thank those authorities that licensed the Doorway Activity Pack CD when we started up. Those licence fees kept us going when finances were terribly tight. Now, it makes sense to make them freely available.
Coming Soon

Doorway News – Good News

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Students from Glasgow University have been working on updating some activities to up-to-date web standards;

Doorway Speller. A teacher in Dundee has re-arranged and renamed the levels in line with current practice

The students have introduced a search feature which allows you to find a list with your target word in. This makes Speller a lot more useful for the casual user.

Speller now can speak the words, but there’s not a way of selecting the text to speech voice from within Speller. That’s to be added. Temporary address; http://tp3-2018-cs19.herokuapp.com/speller/  

Letter and Number Formation has been programmed and it’s looking good. It’s important to stress that motor skills are easily learnt but hard to unlearn. That’s why getting the direction right in letters in handwriting is important.
This new version has been developed because it is usually run with an IWB. These are fitted at varying heights, that often do not suit pupils. Problem solved, we hope!
http://tp3-2018-cs19.herokuapp.com/letter_number_formation/

First Phonics, First Words and First Blends have been combined into one, neat package Doorway Early Phonics. Temporary address; https://jawadmahmoud.github.io/Early-Phonics/



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Text Type 3 – Phase 2 is released

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Text Type 3 is the newest version of this longstanding touch typing tutor with special features for the Visually Impaired (VI). To ensure the best final implementation, this development has been split into three phases.
Phase 2 has these features;

  • Practice Keyboard has been restored. This allows students to explore the keyboard themselves.
  • Much larger displays of the text can now be offered for the VI student who needs that support.
  • You may choose to see the on-screen keyboard display lower case letters. Keyboard compatibility,
  • Text Type now displays the keyboard that you are using- Windows or Mac; US or UK

This is a major improvement to Text Type typing tutor.
The final version, Phase 3 will include Text to Speech to aid students who are effectively to blind access Text Type.

Touch Typing – Best Practice

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Doorway Text Type is a series of exercises that, followed properly, can lead to a high rate of accuracy in typing and a good rate in terms of words per minute. In handwritten exams with a lot of writing involved. Writing at a rate of 20 words per minute is an arduous task. Rates of 40 -50 WPM should be easily managed by young learners.

Doorway Text Type is a  touch typing tutor (TTT) takes learners from the home keys to mastery of the whole keyboard and typing sentences. This activity is designed to be as accessible as possible to visually impaired learners as possible. This should benefit all learners.

There are some things that you need to know before supporting a learner on the road to touch typing

  • Touch Typing is just that. There should be no keeking* at the keyboard. Do not look at the keyboard or your hands, all the information you need is on the screen in Doorway Touch Type.
  • Touch typing is a motor learning experience. This means not looking at your hands. The best way to ensure this is to cover the learner’s hands with a light cloth. If you truly learn to touch type this skill will last a lifetime like riding a bike. Even learners with mild to moderate visual impairment can be tempted to peep.
  •  You need to get into a comfortable position in which the hands fall naturally onto the keyboard. The surface on which the keyboard stands must not be too high. The wrists may rest on pads if you are typing for a long time.
  • A Touch Typing programme is a series of lessons starting with the home keys ( A S D F J K L : ) and leading to full mastery of the keyboard. Moving on to the next exercise without sufficient mastery of the current exercise will only lead to disappointment later on. A score of 90%, or one error in every ten keypresses, should be the minimum achievement before moving on. 94% or better is our recommended level of accuracy before progressing.
  •  Learners benefit from regular practice. Little and often is best.
  • Accuracy should come before speed. Start slowly. If you can type at a regular pace, almost to a beat, it will help you achieve a high speed. Note Text Type 3 now has a rough word per minutes (WPM) score. However, it is not introduced until all the characters have been introduced.
  • Doorway Text Type is a series of exercises that, followed properly, can lead to a high rate of accuracy in typing and a good rate in terms of words per minute. In handwritten exams with a lot of writing involved. Writing at a rate of 20 words per minute is an arduous task.* “keeking” scots for peeping, or peeking