The home row

Touch typing starts from a single position. The left hand takes A, S, D and F; the right hand takes J, K, L and the semicolon. Every finger gets one key and stays there.

A S D F    J K L ;

The F and J keys carry a small bump or ridge. It is made for hands, not for eyes: the index fingers find the bump by touch and the other fingers settle beside them on their own. That is how you put your hands back on the keyboard without looking down.

After each keystroke the finger returns home immediately. That is what makes the system fast: every letter is always the same distance away and the hand never has to search for its place again.

These eight keys are the base for everything that follows. The other keys lie around the home keys, mostly one step up, down or to the side.

Practise

• Left little finger
• Left ring finger
• Left middle finger
• Left index finger
• Right index finger
• Right middle finger
• Right ring finger
• Right little finger

The drill uses only these eight characters. Look at the screen, not at your hands: the keyboard below the drill shows which finger presses next, and that is quicker to read than your own hands.

Touch typing lessons

Introduction

• Where speed comes fromFast typing is not about fast fingers but about overlapping movements and learned sequences.

Home position

• The home rowEight keys the hand never has to leave. Every keystroke starts here, and the finger comes back here.
• Home row wordsThe first real words, typed without moving a single finger off the home row.
• The extra index finger keysG and H are the only home row letters that make an index finger step aside.

Letters

• The top rowThe finger goes up and slightly left to the key above its home key, the hand stays where it is.
• The bottom rowThe most awkward of the three rows, and for that reason the one most worth drilling.
• The little finger keysThe little finger has the most keys and the least strength.
• All the letters togetherThree rows at once, in real words. This is where typing actually begins.
• Same-finger sequencesTwo letters typed with one and the same finger are the slowest thing in typing, and worth a drill of their own.
• One-handed wordsWords typed entirely with one hand. This is where the weaker hand shows itself.
• Alternating handsWords where the hands change over after every letter. This is where the rhythm comes from.

Capitals, punctuation and digits

• Capital lettersA capital always uses the Shift key on the opposite hand. That is the whole rule.
• PunctuationA comma or a full stop is part of the word, not something beside it.
• DigitsThe number row is far away and you cannot see it without looking down. The only thing that helps is a fixed finger for every digit.

Speed and accuracy

• Frequent letter pairsSpeed comes from a pair becoming one movement, not from a single keystroke getting faster.
• Frequent wordsA couple of hundred words cover a large part of what you will ever type. They are worth a drill of their own.
• An even rhythmAn even pace beats bursts and pauses, even when it feels slower.
• Accuracy before speedA wrong letter costs more than a slow one. In the game too.
• Whole sentencesA capital at the start, a full stop at the end, and everything you have learned put to work at once.

Touch typing