Armed only with a plastic keyboard, newly appointed literacy head John Bell improved his school's literacy results dramatically. Here, he explains how.

When I arrived at Admirals Junior School, Thetford, in the summer of 2001, I didn't like what I saw. The school was in special measures and the children demotivated. In fact, the only motivation in lessons was to be badly behaved. Worse still, lessons seemed to be taught at the children rather than to them - it was obvious that the children had little to do with the process of learning.

At the time, our key stage 2 results showed 51 per cent achieving the expected level in literacy. The teachers were digging fast but the hole was getting bigger. In September 2001 the headteacher asked me to become head of literacy. At the same time, a small north-west company called Keywise Systems asked me to look at a piece of hardware called Keyboard Crazy, which they claimed was the fastest way to teach a child their way around a computer keyboard. They were spot on. After only three lessons with Keyboard Crazy the results were amazing. Not only in terms of keyboard recognition but, perhaps more importantly, in terms of motivation.

Keyboard Crazy is a plastic mock-computer keyboard with variable interchangeable inlays. The original inlay displays the keyboard letters and a blank inlay is provided for pupils to use once they have mastered where the keys go. The kit also includes a pack of coloured letter tiles that pupils place in the right position on the inlay during a variety of games-based tasks.

However good it was, I felt there was a game that could offer so much more. It was the "what?" that had me thinking. Finally it hit me, not in the confines of a literacy lesson but in one of my numeracy lessons. My Year 6 class was completely engrossed in a mental starter to do with number facts. Children were thinking quickly, discussing strategies, speaking and listening; basically just loving what they were doing. At the end of the lesson I asked the question that would eventually inspire my own practice. If children can think quickly in numeracy and become so engaged with basic number skills, why can't this be done with literacy? If a child can come up with six times six in a few seconds then why can't the same idea be used to change a singular noun into a plural noun? At that pivotal moment, mental literacy was born.

The key was to keep it short, so I devised a quick 12-minute session. First, children were asked to identify a particular part of a sentence. For example, if we were working on connectives, I would say, "The dog ran after the cat, however, it got away." The pupils would then key in the connective on the keyboard.

I realised I could teach any part of grammar to the children using this method. To motivate the children I would use, in some instances, a speed trial: the first one to key in the right word or letter would win. In the next round the children would to talk to the class for 20 seconds. For example, if we were learning adjectives, I would give the children 20 seconds to talk about the adjective "slimy" without actually saying the word. This encouraged the class to use the important tools of speaking and listening. In the final round I would ask the children to create the longest word they could think of (past tense verb, for example) with a point scored for every letter spelt correctly. I knew I could do this with spelling and anything else I cared to try. It was the death of boring book-based grammar and spelling exercises.

And the results? The pupils became electrically-motivated and the school moved out of special measures; within a year 76 per cent reached the expected level at key stage 2. So much was done by the children themselves that the elements of grammar that were previously missing from their written work were now present. Why? Because the lessons had been memorable to the pupils, and they had been learning key skills at the same time.

I went on to create different lesson plans across the primary age range. Keyboard Crazy was such a hit I was asked to take the idea to The Basic Skills Agency's annual conference in December (a summary is available at www.basic-skills.co.uk). Mental literacy is now being used in my new school, Norwich Road Primary in Thetford, and the success of mental literacy in tandem with Keyboard Crazy goes on and on.

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