Reading a few words ahead
By maxwellsdad - updated: 3 years, 3 months ago - 1 message
I used to see this piece of advice and think "Well duh, obviously you have to read the text before you type it".
After passing 100wpm I'm noticing more and more how important this is. It takes some time to recognize a word and process which set of keys your fingers have to press.
If you finish a word and haven't processed the next one yet, your finger positioning won't be what you'd like it to be. You won't know where your fingers are supposed to go yet. Then you'll either make a mistake or slow down and lose your rhythm.
Around the time when we pass the 60wpm mark, we start memorizing sequences of keypresses for specific words and committing them to our muscle memory. So we type one word, then we remember the sequence for the next word and type that in one go. Then we remember the sequence of words we need for the next word, position our fingers accordingly and type that word.
Between those one-word bursts, we slow down momentarily to fetch the sequence for the next word.
Reading a few words ahead allows us to remember the keys we need to press for the next few words while we're still typing so that we never have to slow down.
I don't know if it is right to advocate other typing sites here*, but
monkeytype.com has a mode where words ahead of you disappear, so you have to look ahead to be able to type. The setting is hidden in the many preferences, but if you search you should be able to find it. This mode is super useful for training your ability to look ahead, and just 20 minutes of using it can help a lot.
*I do actually like keyhero slightly better, because of the way that it treats accuracy, and the fact that less options makes me spend less time looking through them.
By a_yeti - posted: 3 years, 3 months ago
I don't know if it is right to advocate other typing sites here*, but
monkeytype.com has a mode where words ahead of you disappear, so you have to look ahead to be able to type. The setting is hidden in the many preferences, but if you search you should be able to find it. This mode is super useful for training your ability to look ahead, and just 20 minutes of using it can help a lot.
*I do actually like keyhero slightly better, because of the way that it treats accuracy, and the fact that less options makes me spend less time looking through them.
