Privacy & your data
Updated September 8, 2026
Their First Typing is a free typing practice website supported by Their First Words. You can practice without an account.
Just visiting
Guest lesson completion, practice observations and supported resume positions are saved in this browser’s local storage. They remain after refreshing or closing the page. They are not sent to an account until you explicitly sign in. Clearing browser data or using private browsing can remove local progress. Your light or dark appearance preference may stay on this browser. We do not ask for a child’s name, age, photo, voice recording or school.
Saving with a grown-up’s email
An adult can choose email-link sign-in to save finished lessons and independent practice checks across visits and devices. Open the sign-in link in the same browser to attach your local guest progress. A link opened elsewhere still signs in and restores existing account data, but does not transfer anonymous progress between browsers. Firebase Authentication verifies the email address and manages sign-in. Cloud Firestore stores completed lesson and check identifiers, and bounded practice summaries for each language: skill identifiers, help and clean-attempt counts, review dates and optional native typing pace. For supported unfinished exercises, it stores a resume bookmark: the lesson or set identifier, next prompt number, input method and whether earlier prompts were completed without help. It also stores reset information and update times under the account’s user identifier. After sign-in, independently keyed browser-local retry records protect new progress until Firestore confirms each operation; confirmed items are removed. Raw text typed into exercises and detailed typing events are not uploaded as learning records.
Email updates
The signup form explains that the email address will also receive occasional Their First Typing news, new languages and features, and updates or offers from Their First Words. We record the signup notice version and the account’s update preference. Unsubscribe in Grown-up account at any time. Signing in again preserves an existing unsubscribe. Sign-in emails remain available when you request them.
Keeping the website running
The site uses Google Firebase for hosting, account authentication and saved progress. These services process connection and security information needed to deliver and protect the service. Saved progress uses a United States Firestore location. Audio recordings are prepared in advance; typing does not trigger paid AI or speech-generation requests.
Our sponsor
Their First Words links and sponsor messages help support free typing. They lead to a separate product with its own privacy information. This website currently includes no third-party advertising trackers or behavioral ad network.
Your choices
Use Settings → Reset local progress to clear this language’s guest progress on this device. Use Grown-up account to reset a language’s saved progress, unsubscribe from product updates or sign out. Signing out clears this page’s private visit state after pending account writes are saved. To request a copy or deletion of your typing account and its saved data, email privacy@theirfirstwords.org from the address used for the account. For help with typing or sign-in, contact support@theirfirstwords.org.