Why learn to touch type?
Touch typing means typing without looking at your hands, with every finger responsible for its own set of keys. Learning it properly takes a few weeks of dull practice, and it is worth saying plainly why that is a good trade.
Resting position
-
Your hands stop interrupting your thinking
Hunting for keys uses the same attention you need for the actual work. Once your fingers know where the letters are, all of your concentration goes into what you are trying to say instead of how to get it onto the screen.
-
Accuracy matters more than the speed does
Most people who hunt and peck settle somewhere around 25 to 35 words a minute and make plenty of mistakes they have to go back and fix. A competent touch typist is roughly twice that and, more importantly, spends far less time correcting.
-
It shows up in assessment
Extended responses, coding tasks, anything timed. If half your effort goes into the mechanics of typing, that is effort not going into the answer. Slow typing quietly costs marks you had earned.
-
It is easier on your body
Your hands stay in one place and your head stays up. No constant looking down and back to the screen, no hunching over the keyboard for an hour.
-
Programming is full of awkward characters
Brackets, colons, quotes and semicolons are scattered around the edges of the keyboard. Knowing them by feel makes writing code noticeably less painful.
-
You will use it for the rest of your life
Whatever you end up doing, you will spend years at a keyboard. This is a few weeks of effort for a skill that keeps paying you back long after you leave school.
The honest part: it gets worse before it gets better
You can already type at some speed with two or four fingers. Using the correct fingers will feel slow and clumsy for the first few weeks, and it is tempting to give up and go back to what you know. That dip is normal and everyone goes through it. Keep your eyes off your hands, aim for accuracy rather than speed, and the speed arrives on its own.
How to use this
How the lessons, games, tests and reports work, and how to keep your progress safe.
Keep your progress safe
Your progress is saved in this web browser, on this computer, and nowhere else. Nothing is sent to your teacher or stored online. That means some ordinary things will wipe it, so do not:
- Clear your browsing data. If your browser offers to clear history, leave cookies and site data unticked.
- Use a private or incognito window. Everything in it is thrown away when the window closes.
- Switch to a different browser or computer. Your progress stays behind on the one you used.
- Open a different copy of the page. A new download, or the page at a different web address, starts with a blank record. Always use the link your teacher gave you.
- Press Reset everything unless you really mean to start again. It asks for a teacher code for exactly this reason.
Some school computers clear browser data when you log out. If yours does, or your progress is lost for any other reason, you do not have to start from lesson 1: see Moving on. Generating a report every so often also gives you a copy of your record.
How a lesson works
There are sixteen lessons. Each one adds two new keys and takes about ten minutes. Every lesson has two drills:
- New Keys practises just the two new keys. Pass it with 70% accuracy.
- Muscle Memory mixes the new keys with everything from the earlier lessons. Pass it with 70% accuracy.
When both drills are passed, the lesson is ticked off. The timer starts on your first keystroke, and backspace is switched off, so a mistake stays on the page. The keyboard under each drill shows which finger to use: each finger has its own colour, and the next key to press glows.
Moving on to the next lesson
Passing Muscle Memory with at least 70% accuracy unlocks the next lesson. New Keys helps you learn the keys, but Muscle Memory is the one that opens the way forward.
If you choose a lesson that is still locked, you will be told which drill to pass. You can take the previous lesson's Muscle Memory drill straight away, even if that lesson is locked too. Pass it and every lesson up to the one you wanted opens.
So if your progress is ever lost, pick the lesson you were up to and take the check. You will be back where you were in a few minutes.
Games and bonus hearts
Every lesson has a game, unlocked once you pass that lesson's Muscle Memory drill. There are six kinds, and no two lessons in a row use the same one. Each game only uses the keys you have learned so far, and every one of them speeds up a little with each correct answer.
Hearts are earned. You get one heart for every drill you pass in that lesson, repeats included, up to five. Pass New Keys and Muscle Memory once each and you have two hearts. Pass either drill again and you have three, and so on. A wrong key, or a letter you miss, costs a heart. Lose them all and the game ends.
Your best score in each lesson counts towards your total game score.
Speed test and class test
Speed test
For practice. Three random sentences, different every time you open it. Use it as often as you like to see how quick and accurate you are. Each attempt goes into your history.
Class test
For assessment. Your teacher gives the class a five character code, and everyone who types it gets exactly the same three sentences, so results can be compared fairly. When you finish, download the PDF report and hand it in.
Your progress snapshot
The four figures at the top of every page:
- Highest lesson finished: the furthest lesson with both drills passed.
- Average best New Keys and Average best Muscle Memory: your best speed in each drill, averaged across the lessons you have done, with the accuracy from those same runs.
- Total game score: your best game score from each lesson, added together.
Status badges
There are nine badges, from Home Row Hatchling to Keyboard Virtuoso. Your badge appears in your progress card at the top of every page and on every report. To earn a badge you need all four of these at its level:
- Lesson: the furthest lesson where you have passed Muscle Memory.
- Speed: the higher of your average best Muscle Memory speed and your best test.
- Accuracy: the higher of your average best Muscle Memory accuracy and your best test.
- Practice time: minutes spent typing in drills, tests and games. Pauses of more than a few seconds do not count.
Your progress card always tells you what is still to do for the next one.
What goes in a report
Generate report on the home screen makes a PDF of your record at any time. The report you download after a class test is the same, with that test's result added.
- Page 1: your name and the date, a summary or your class test result, your lesson progress, the four snapshot figures, a graph of your speed and accuracy across tests, your recent test history, and for a class test, the sentences you typed.
- Page 2, effort and focus: every fortnight since you started. It shows how many days you opened the page, which lessons you completed or worked on, the letters you typed, and how many times you played each game. A fortnight when the page was not opened shows NOT LOADED. One when it was opened but nothing was done shows NO PROGRESS. For a lesson you started but did not finish, the portion you attempted is shown in italics.
Every report carries a verification code calculated from its results.
Your name and resetting
Save your name on the home screen once. It appears on your reports and fills in the class test for you. It cannot be changed afterwards, so that results can never be handed in under someone else's name.
If a computer is being passed to a different student, a teacher can clear everything with Reset everything, which asks for a teacher code.
Good habits
- Rest your fingers on the home keys, A S D F and J K L ;. The small ridges on F and J let you find them without looking.
- Keep your eyes on the screen, not on your hands.
- Go for accuracy first. The speed follows.
- Sit up straight with your wrists level, and take a short break if your hands start to ache.
Choose a lesson
Each lesson takes about ten minutes and has two drills. New Keys practises the two new keys on their own. Muscle Memory mixes them with everything you have learned so far, and passing it with at least 70% accuracy unlocks the next lesson. Backspace does nothing, so a mistake stays on the page: keep going and let the rhythm settle.
Where your fingers go
The keyboard splits down the red line: everything to the left belongs to your left hand, everything to the right belongs to your right. Each colour is one finger, and your index fingers cover the two widest green columns, so they do the most work.
Lesson
Speed test
Three sentences, picked at random every time you open this section. The clock starts when you type the first letter and stops on the last one. Correct letters turn green, mistakes turn red, and backspace will not save you.
Class test
Your teacher will read out a five character code. Everyone who types the same code gets exactly the same three sentences, so the results can be compared fairly. When you finish, download your result file and submit it.
Your name is taken from the home screen and cannot be edited here, so a result can never be submitted under someone else's name. Use "Reset everything" on the home screen if this computer is being handed to a different student.
Nothing is sent anywhere. When you finish you can download a PDF report with this result, your lesson progress and every test you have done on this computer.