Free typing lessons
The typing lessons are structured to provide a gradual and efficient path for improving your typing skills. The lessons are designed to take you from keyboard typing basics, starting with keys near the keyboard's center and gradually advancing to less approachable keys that require using your weaker fingers, e.g., typing with the little fingers to reach the outer regions of the keyboard. Therefore, starting your typing course with your first lesson is strongly recommended. Then, move on to the next typing lessons and complete them in ascending order.
The keyboard typing lessons begin with fundamental exercises that perfect the typing technique using a specific group of keys that are somehow related - they are next to or opposite each other or concern specific types of keyboard keys, e.g., only numeric keys. The typing lessons are ordered from the easiest to the most complex. This systematic approach empowers you to establish muscle memory and become well-acquainted with the keyboard layout. Once you have mastered a given group of keys, you will smoothly move on to the next set of keyboard keys, where you will further improve your touch typing skills. Such a course's structure provides a solid foundation in learning touch typing, ensuring greater speed and accuracy as you progress through the typing course.
The touch typing course is free if you're wondering. You can practice as long as you want... A little advice: if you get bored with the touch typing course, switch to another type of exercise at least for some time - try the text typing master section or play a typing game.
Touch typing course structure
The touch typing course consists of multiple lessons grouped in blocks. After several typing lessons, there is a summary of these lessons and another summary that concerns the same keys but includes capitalized letters. In the case of some languages, there may be only one summary.
There are three types of typing lessons:
- Typing lessons for specific keyboard characters
- Typing lessons summary
- Typing lessons for most common words
The most basic typing lessons involve practicing several particular characters. After a few such lessons, a summary checks if you have mastered touch typing of characters taught in the summarized typing lessons. After a standard summary, there is a summary of the same lessons that involve practicing mostly typing capital letters. The final lessons concentrate on common words for a given language, which teach how to master all letters on the keyboard.
Typing lessons of particular keys
These are the most basic keyboard typing lessons. They concentrate on the typing exercise of several characters. These lessons are easily distinguishable by small hand icons.
Some of the lesson titles contain arrows. This means your finger should travel from a key in the keyboard home row to press a given key. The arrow reflects the direction.
The first lessons of the touch typing course concern typing letters. After all letters are covered, we concentrate on numbers.
For sure, the most difficult typing lessons are the ones concerning special characters. These keyboard typing lessons vary the most depending on the keyboard you use. For instance, the "backslash" ("\") can be on the top left above the Enter key; on others, below the Enter key - on the bottom left of the keyboard. These layouts can be different within the same language.
Efficiently typing special characters is significant for programmers who use them in coding. Most people, however, only need to know how to type some basic special characters like brackets, comma, dot, etc.
Summary of the typing lessons
Summaries of the typing lessons are usually after four lessons. They concern all the keys that have been practiced in the previous lessons.
These keyboard typing lessons contain words built from the letters taught in the summarized lessons. If there are too few letters to construct a proper amount of words, we take up to 2 letters from previously completed lessons for a given word. This feature might be considered a bug in the typing lessons, which it is not.
There are two types of keyboard typing lesson summaries: lessons for lowercase characters only and lessons concerning capital letters. The typing lessons that consider capital letters teach you to type faster by repeating a couple of times a single capital letter. These typing lessons require typing common capitalized words.
Keyboard typing lessons of most common words
Once you have established a solid foundation of touch typing when exercising on the most basic lessons, you will advance to the lessons, focusing on the most common words. Typing common words repetitively is an effective way to increase speed and accuracy. This is because, in real-world typing, we often use common words that form the backbone of our communication. By practicing these words, you will develop muscle memory and be able to type them without thinking, allowing you to focus on the less common words and complex sentences that require more attention and precision.
Practicing typing common words in separate lessons of the touch typing course is crucial to typing them faster. The top 100 words, known as the "core words," make up about 50% of written English. Individuals use a relatively small percentage of the total vocabulary in everyday conversation or writing. Roughly 90-95% of spoken and written communication in English comprises the most common 1,000 words. That is why learning by doing the typing lessons of the most common words is so important to increase your typing speed and accuracy. Other languages may have a more robust vocabulary than English. Still, the amount of the most common words in these languages should not differ much. No matter how complicated the language is, the conclusion is that keyboard typing lessons of the most common words are worth practicing.
Accuracy and speed in the typing lessons
While taking our free-of-charge touch typing lessons, it is critical to remember that accuracy is more important than speed, especially during the initial learning phase. Mistyping letters or other characters can consolidate faulty typing habits. Repetitive typing errors can be challenging to correct later. Therefore, your primary focus should be on pressing the correct keys consistently.
Typing speed is a skill that naturally develops with time and practice. Prioritizing accuracy over speed allows you to cultivate a solid foundation of touch typing skills. It would be best to consistently press the correct keys when training within the typing lessons. This way, your fingers learn their positions, allowing for increasing typing speed without compromising precision.
As you navigate our typing lessons, remember that slow and steady wins the race. Take time to develop accurate typing skills; in due course, you will significantly improve your speed and accuracy. Commit to regular practice with the typing lessons and become proficient.
Frequency of practicing touch typing
Practicing fast typing techniques with the AgileFingers touch typing course can sometimes be tiring. Lessons are quite monothematic as they involve a lot of repetitive keyboard typing activity. Unfortunately, developing muscle memory effectively is connected with repeating the same activities. When you type the same key frequently, your muscles get used to its position.
Spending time on the typing lessons is vital, especially if you begin learning touch typing. It is hard to say how much time you should sacrifice for the typing lessons as different people have different preferences and needs. If you are going to practice every day, and you do not have too much time for practicing, spend at least 10 minutes a day on the typing lessons. Typing for this short time should not bore you too much, even if it means always typing the same characters. Touch typing is learned in the typing lessons through the repetition of pressing the same key.
If you need breaks from the typing lessons, and you have already done all the lessons, try typing one of the text fragments or playing a touch typing game.
What to practice after the typing lessons
Once you feel confident typing and know where each finger is, you can still do the lessons of the touch typing course. This way, you should increase your typing speed. However, the touch typing course is the most important at the beginning of your typing education. When you type accurately without looking at the keyboard, you can concentrate on typing texts and the lessons that teach you how to type the most common words. You also can play some touch typing games more often if it motivates you to practice.
It is also a good idea to do the typing test from time to time to check if the exercises you do increase your speed.