A Comprehensive Guide to Typing at Home

Welcome to our comprehensive guide to typing at home. Whether you’re a beginner or seeking to enhance your skills, this guide covers everything you need to know about typing effectively and safely. Learn about proper technique, the benefits of touch typing, and how to increase your speed and accuracy. We provide beginner and intermediate typing practice exercises, as well as fun and challenging typing games.

Additionally, we explore ergonomics and offer tips to prevent injuries. While you’re here, take a moment to secure your future by comparing insurance rates from the best providers. Enter your ZIP code and find the perfect coverage that suits your needs. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to protect what matters most.

Learning to Type

Technically, every person knows how to type already. It is fairly instinctual. Faced with a keyboard, all you need to do is to simply hit the keys to input whatever information you want. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to type effectively or efficiently. Many people still employ the two-finger typing technique, which can slow down what they need to get done.

Most typing lessons you will find online will teach you touch typing or touch keyboarding, a technique in which a typist uses muscle memory in order to strike keys without looking. This technique is effective because it allows the typist to turn their attention solely to what they are writing on the screen instead of looking down at the keyboard to find certain keys.

If your primary goal in learning is to increase your typing speed, learning this typing technique is the way to go.

A great variety of people in various jobs will benefit from learning to type more efficiently. From executive assistants to college students and computer programmers, using proper typing technique can help you get your tasks done faster and prevent incurring injuries from the repetitive activity.

Typing quickly is also great if you want to keep in touch with friends of family on social media or through blogging. Typing skills open a whole new world.

Resources:

• GCF Global: Typing tutorial
• Sense-Lang: Home

Beginner Typing Practice

The first thing new typists learn is proper hand, finger, and wrist placement as well as sitting posture. You can choose to follow your preferred keyboard technique which determines the key placement for each of your fingers. You can find out more about these techniques in the resources below.

The important thing is to make typing properly almost second nature to your fingers by practicing regularly. Eventually, your hands will develop muscle memory. Doing timed typing tests on the internet is a simple (and free) way to train yourself.

In the beginning, do not focus too much of your attention on typing fast. You can improve your speed later. The important thing is to build a proper foundation in typing properly with all your fingers, not just two. Train yourself to hit the right keys with the right fingers every time and you will increase your WPM steadily.

Resources:

• Akron Library: Typing for beginners
• Louisville Free Public Library: Teach yourself: Basic keyboarding

Intermediate Typing Practice

Most of the beginner typing practice tests you will find online will give you a string of random characters or words to type. When you move forward with your lessons, it is important to find and do practice tests that will require you to type actual sentences. After all, you will not be typing ‘jjkkllkls’ in your everyday life very often.

You will find plenty of practice options for free on the Internet. We have linked to some below, so you can give them a try yourself. Just note that some sites may require you to make an account to track your progress over time.

Resources:

• Rochester Institute of Technology: Websites to practice typing
• California State University Long Beach: Typing practice

Games and Tests to Improving Typing Skills

Once you reach an intermediate level of skill, you will more or less have a WPM of 40. Since that is considered the average typing speed, you may want to aim for a higher WPM as your goal.

Practice is very important in improving your typing skills. Constant application of the lessons you learned will help with reaching your goals. However, doing the same repetitive tests over and over may get boring quickly. To keep you both on track and entertained, practice your typing through playing typing games. We have linked to some fantastic games you can try below.

Resources:

• Penfield Central School District: Typing practice
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Typing game
• Hamlin Middle School: Keyboarding games

Ergonomics and Preventing Injuries

Maintaining a proper sitting position is one of the first things you learn when starting your typing lessons and for good reason. This can prevent you from developing pain in your neck, back, and wrists; as well as help you avoid common repetitive motion injuries.

To avoid neck and back pain when typing for hours, maintain proper posture by making sure that your spine is aligned with the back rest of your seat. Make sure that your feet are also flat on the floor. Shorter people may find using a footstool more comfortable when sitting on chairs that are high for them.

Another thing both beginner and advance typists need to look out for is RSI, or repetitive strain injury. This condition arises when the toll of performing tasks like typing leads to pain in the palm, fingers, wrists, and even shoulders of the typist.

The good thing is that injury is preventable. Aside from practicing proper posture when typing, remember to maintain proper techniques when typing as well. This means keeping your wrists straight as you work, avoiding resting them on the keyboard, and refraining from straining your fingers by trying to reach hard-to-reach keys.

To learn more, check out the resources below.

Resources:

• Kids Health: Computer-related repetitive stress injuries
• Safety Works Maine: Keys to your good work

Centers for Disease Control: Alternative keyboards