Learning the whole keyboard at once is how people give up. Learning it one row at a time, starting with the eight keys under your fingers, means you are typing real words within minutes and never feel lost.
Start with only the home row. A S D F, J K L and the semicolon. Without looking down, type these until they come without thinking:
sad lad fall ask flask salad
Every one of those uses only home row keys. If you have to look, stop, put your fingers back on the bumps and start the word again. Looking down once is not a failure. Looking down for every word means going slower until you do not have to.
Then add the row above. Q W E R T, Y U I O P. Each finger reaches up and comes straight back. Now you can type:
work is quite easy after a while
Then the row below. Z X C V B, N M and the comma and full stop. Now you have everything:
the box is not on my desk
Capital letters use the opposite hand's shift. Capital A is left little finger on the letter, right little finger holding shift. Using the same hand for both is a habit that will slow you down for years, so fix it now while nothing is automatic yet.
Ten minutes on one row beats an hour on all three. When a row feels boring, that is the signal to add the next one.
You are practising and you keep hitting the wrong key on the top row.
What happens: Looking is the habit you are here to break, and every glance makes it stronger. You will type correctly today and still be looking down in a year.
What happens: Right. Your fingers learn the position by getting it wrong and correcting, which they cannot do if your eyes do the work for them. Slow and looking up beats fast and looking down.
How long should I stay on the home row before adding the next one?
Until you can type the practice words without pausing to think about where a letter is. For most people that is two or three sessions of ten minutes. There is no prize for moving on early, and going back to fix a shaky foundation costs far more than staying an extra day.
What about numbers?
Leave the number row until the letters are automatic. Most work typing is words, and the number row is the hardest to reach without looking. When you do come to it, treat it as a fourth row and learn it the same way. If your keyboard has a number pad on the right, that is worth learning separately for data capture work.
I keep hitting caps lock instead of shift
Very common, they are next to each other on the left. Feel for the difference: shift is the larger key below caps lock. If you keep catching it, use the right hand shift for left hand letters, which is the correct habit anyway.
Before you move on
- Type the home row words without looking down
- Add the top row only when the home row is boring
- Use the opposite hand's shift for capitals
Check what you know
4 questions. Have a look at what this lesson asks.
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