You know every key. This lesson is not about learning new ones; it is about changing how you type the ones you have.
From letters to units
A beginner types the as three decisions: find t, find h, find e. A fast typist types it as one — a single practised movement, the way a pianist plays a chord rather than three notes.
That shift from character-by-character to chunk-by-chunk is what separates 35 words per minute from 70. It is not achieved by trying harder or moving faster. It is achieved by repeating the same small set of words until they stop being spelled and start being gestures.
Why a small set is enough
English is extraordinarily top-heavy. Roughly 100 words account for about half of everything written in ordinary prose — the, of, and, to, in, is, you, that, it, he, was, for, on, are, as, with, his, they.
Every one of them is short, common, and worth drilling to automaticity. Make those hundred words effortless and you have made half of all your future typing effortless. No other practice has that leverage.
How to drill effectively
- Repeat, do not vary. The value is in repetition of the same movement. Typing a hundred different words once each trains nothing.
- Stay just below your error threshold. Fast enough to feel pressure, slow enough that mistakes are rare. If accuracy falls below about 96%, you are practising errors.
- Short sessions, often. Fifteen minutes daily beats two hours on a Sunday, because motor learning consolidates between sessions rather than during them.
The plateau this fixes
Most self-taught typists stall somewhere between 30 and 40 words per minute. Almost always the cause is that they are still processing individual letters. If your speed has not moved in weeks despite regular practice, this is the lesson to repeat — not the harder ones.
Practice notes
Resist the urge to check your speed after every run. Watch accuracy instead; speed follows it, and chasing the number directly tends to produce exactly the sloppy technique that caps it.