How to Improve Your Keyboarding Skills

How to Improve Your Keyboarding Skills thumbnail
The starting position is key to touch typing speed and accuracy.

One skill that can always be improved upon is the ability to touch type on a standard keyboard or typewriter using a standard QWERTY layout. Touch typists have the ability to enter a large amount of text quickly and accurately and also project a professional appearance in job interviews or with clients. The real-world limit for two-finger typists who poke at the keys one at a time is about 25 words per minute, but touch typists can easily achieve twice that speed with a little practice, and many people reach much higher speeds over time.

Instructions

    • 1

      Learn the home row keys of "A," "S," "D," "F" and "J," "K," "L," ";". These can be found on most keyboards without looking at the keys by running the index finger on each hand over the keys until the small tab on the "F" and the "J" keys are felt under the index finger. Lay each other finger along the keys of the same row for proper starting placement.

    • 2

      Repeat typing known phrases and sentences that have all of the letters in them, such as the classic line "The quick red fox jumps over the lazy brown dog."

    • 3

      Practice typing letters first and then mix in upper and lower case letters, punctuation marks, numbers and keyboard symbols as the accuracy improves.

    • 4

      Visit one of the many free typing tutor websites and use the tools and games to improve speed and accuracy and to test and measure progress.

Tips & Warnings

  • Practice daily with words you are familiar with.

  • Focus on accuracy and the speed will naturally follow.

  • Do not mix touch typing and poking at the keys as this will slow the learning process. Learn the correct way from scratch and start to forget the bad habits in order to gain speed.

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  • Photo Credit Creatas Images/Creatas/Getty Images

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