Why use Direct Reach rather than Home Keys?

Computers are creative tools, so for managerial and professional people and students creating text is ‘word-smithing’, rather than mechanically copying drafts.  Word-smithing requires looking at the screen in the same manner as hand-writing.  In contrast, the traditional typing method often involves copying a document and watching that rather than the text being created.

Note the differences between computers and typewriters.

Computer keyboard is flatter and more compact.

The supposed necessity of resting the hands on the keys is a legacy of the steep inclination and large spread of the mechanical typewriter keys and the necessity to move up and down as well as sideways.

Accuracy is less important on the computer.

With a typewriter, it is difficult to correct mistakes, so accuracy is important from the beginning in the traditional typing method.  A computer is more forgiving in that mistakes are easily corrected, and thus the accuracy of keystrokes is not initially as important.

Traditional Typing Methods.

The Home Keys are across the middle of the keyboard – A-S-D-F on the left, and J-K-L-; on the right.

The Home Keys technique requires keeping at least one finger of each hand on the home keys while reaching for the other keys above and below.  Most keyboards have raised ‘bumps’ on two of these keys (usually F and J) to help you find those keys easily.

Typists are instructed to start typing with their fingers on the Home Keys and rest them there when not actually typing.  Novice students of typing are made to do extensive Home Key exercises.  The Home Keys technique soon becomes an in-grained habit.

For old-fashioned typewriters, the Home Keys technique was perhaps logical.  The fingers needed to start at the middle row of the keys and to reach up and down large steeply inclined keys.  The modern computer keyboard is almost flat, yet the Home Keys technique has been slavishly maintained.

 

What problems has this caused?

• Boredom.

  Because of the QWERTY keyboard arrangement, the Home Keys technique requires the drudgery of nonsense drills resulting in mental ‘junk chunks’ and faulty cognitive imprinting, which you then have to un-learn in order to type real words.  For example, having practised ‘frf’ or ‘juj’ endlessly, when will there ever be a word that uses those combinations?

  The prominent researcher and expert on typing teaching methods, Leonard West, identified the problem of these nonsense exercises and recommended the minimal use of these in typing teaching methods (West, 1983).

• Mind-mapping confusion.

  The stroking out patterns used in the Home Keys technique are complicated, and cross over the Key-Finger Groups that expert typists have learned.  This causes mind-mapping confusion. 

  Compare the simple Key-Finger Groups of typeSmart with the complicated charts supplied with popular typing tutorial packages.

• Awkward fingering.

  The habit of keeping one or more fingers on Home Keys produces a range of individual fingering techniques ranging from fairly easy to quite awkward.  Try these two examples:

  1. Type ‘G’ keeping the little finger on the ‘A’ key, or type ‘U’ keeping the little finger on the ‘;’ key.

  2. Type ‘C’ using the ‘D’ finger (middle finger) while keeping any of the other fingers on one of the Home Keys ‘A-S-D-F’.

  The first exercise is quite easy and the second is quite awkward, almost impossible for many.  Thus trying to keep fingers in contact with the Home Keys requires the mastering of many awkward fingering techniques.

• Disruption to Creative Flow.

  This awkward fingering involved in the Home Keys technique means that any real flow to text creation is difficult.  Easy fingering speeds up the flow and awkward fingering slows it down.

• Performance Anxiety.

  Learning traditional typing can be quite stressful because of the great emphasis on the accuracy and speed of individual keystrokes while not looking at the keyboard.  This creates performance anxiety.

  Traditional typing tutor software ‘beeps’ when you do not succeed, and displays all your mistakes on the computer screen.  These negative audio and visual responses raise your performance anxiety and incorrectly imprint the mistake in your mind confusing the mind-mapping.

• Possible Contributor to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

  There is also the possibility that the Home Keys technique is a contributor to Repetitive Strain Injury due to the awkward key strokes, imperfect coordination, and conditioned stress from performance anxiety.

 

How is typeSmart different?

• Uses Direct Reach method even for beginners.

Our observations of high-speed typists (100 wpm or more) indicate that they do not reach out from the Home Keys and return while typing at high speed.  Instead they have instinctively learned the Key-Finger Groups as a psychomotor skill (like driving or playing sport).  Out of habit they may rest their hands on the Home Keys when about to start or when not actually typing, but once they begin typing the Home Keys technique is dropped.

This is confirmed by the advice of West who recommends: “Do not discourage direct reaching for the keys; do not insist on a return to the home keys after each stroke” (West, 1983, page 69).  In other words, West is advising that typists need to drop the Home Keys technique in order to become expert.  So typeSmart encourages using Direct Reach right from the start.

• Uses the space-bar for anchoring.

  The common-sense principle of the space-bar as the anchor key is the start of the mind-map to the Key-Finger Groups.  The space-bar is the biggest and easiest key to hit on the keyboard (what a relief after those awkward Home Keys!).  You can hit it easily with either thumb, and there are always spaces between words!

• Teaches common groups of letters found in normal language.

  Rather than combine letters in strange ways just to practise typing, typeSmart uses only letter combinations that occur in normal language.  For example, ‘fr’, ‘gu’, ‘de’, ‘as’.

  Linguists say that 81% of all words are made up of mono-syllables and thus learning to type common mono-syllables allows you to master typing real words more quickly than through learning individual keystrokes.

  This means training your unconscious mind to automatically associate, firstly, areas of the keyboard with your fingers, and then, whole words and syllables with finger movements in the way a pianist associates keys with notes and then learns chords.  We use piano music in the typeSmart software to reinforce this association.

• Focuses on the keys we mainly use – the letters, the space bar, full stop and comma.

  You can start exercises by looking at the keyboard, and your attention will naturally be drawn up to the screen as you progress.  You can concentrate on learning to type instead of worrying about mistakes.

  Unless you are required to be an expert typist, you are allowed to look at the keyboard to use the less commonly-used peripheral keys.

• Uses the same cognitive processes we use to speak and read.

  typeSmart uses the two modalities of learning – sight and audio – as words are ‘seen’ by some people and ‘heard’ by others.

• Helps the creative juices flow.

  typeSmart is based on ‘trial and success’, not ‘trial and error’, so it is more enjoyable and less stressful.  typeSmart acknowledges your success with positive feedback; if you make a mistake, the letter does not appear on the screen - the lesson proceeds only when you type the correct letters. You can relax while remaining reasonably alert.

  Direct Reach brings all fingering to a more or less uniform level of dexterity, thereby allowing for the development of flow and rhythm.  This is similar to expert typists who have been able to ‘let go’ of the Home Keys to achieve speed and flow.

• Potentially reduces the risk of keyboard-related injury.

1. The Direct Reach method avoids the physically awkward or impossible keystrokes.
2. Modern learning principles help to make typing an enjoyable and creative experience, allaying performance anxiety.

 

The easiest, fastest, and safest method of learning keyboard skills.

typeSmart is a breakthrough in typing technology, the only typing tutor or keyboard skills software that incorporates the:

• Latest research into the effectiveness of typing methods.
• Mind-mapping concept of Tony Buzan.
• Accelerated learning techniques, in particular those of Colin Rose.

typeSmart is based on the standard QWERTY keyboard that everyone already uses, so there's no need to be switching between keyboards.

Basic keyboard skills can be attained in an average of 4-6 hours of recorded progress, compared to more than 12 hours for traditional typing software. typeSmart halves the time!

typeSmart will give you immediate results, dramatically increase your productivity and greatly improve your enjoyment of using your computer.