How To Start Typing?

Home key row. BE SURE TO USE THE CORRECT FINGER FOR DEPRESSING THE KEY. (No matter how slow or difficult, the beginning typist must, at this time, develop the habit of hitting the correct key with the correct finger. Speed and accuracy will come with practice.) Practice the lines shown in figure 2-4 until they become fairly routine, and then go on to the next step. NOTE: Depress the space bar with the right thumb to get the space between letter groups. The hardest keys to depress in this exercise are the h, g, and ~ because you must move your finger from the home keys to these letters. The fingers should be curved and held barely touching the home keys. Then, the respective finger (right index finger for h, left index finger for g, and the left index finger for c should be removed from the home key without any forward movement of the other fingers. The respective key should be struck, and the finger returned immediately to the home key. This should be practiced by looking at the keyboard and thinking the letters for the first few times. Then it should be done not looking at the keyboard. When this exercise can be typed properly for several times without looking at the keyboard, you are ready for the next step. FIRST ROW ABOVE THE HOME KEYS. Figure 2-5 shows some exercise lines for practicing the reaches for the keys in the row above the home keys. Before starting this exercise, you should go back to the earlier paragraphs in this section that discuss which fingers depress which keys. This information should be written down and followed until the reaches are routine and have been memorized. The first five groups of letters in this exercise are strictly for getting used to reaching for the keys. They should be practiced and mastered before moving onto the last two lines. When you can type these first groups of lines without looking at the keyboard, you are ready to try the last two lines. When typing the last two lines of the exercise, you should think the WORD instead of the letter. BOTTOM KEY ROW. Again, you should refer to paragraphs that discuss which fingers depress which keys in this row. Also, they should be written down and memorized. Figure 2-6 shows some exercises for finger reaches in this row. SHIFTING FOR UPPERCASE. The shift keys and the differences between uppercase and lowercase have been explained previously. The Figure 2-5.—Exercises for finger reaches for the keyboard row immediately above the home key row. 2-8