FluencyLesson 2 of 20 · Rhythm before speed
Reading ahead
Keep your eyes a word or two in front of your fingers. The single habit that separates smooth typing from stop-start typing.
- New keys
- No new keys
- To pass
- Done when the check reaches 94% accuracy and 25 words a minute.
Lesson 2 is locked
It opens when you pass the check in lesson 1 (The cost of an error). Lessons open one at a time, in order.
Watch a fluent typist copying text and you will notice their eyes are never on the word they are typing. They are one or two words ahead, sometimes a whole phrase. The hands are working from a short memory, and the eyes are filling it. This is what makes their typing continuous: the fingers never run out of instructions and never have to wait for the eyes to catch up.
Beginners do the opposite. They read a word, type it, and then read the next one, so between every word there is a small gap in which nothing happens. At speed those gaps add up to more time than the typing itself. Closing them is not a matter of moving faster but of reading earlier, and it can be practised directly: as your fingers begin a word, move your eyes to the next one. Say it to yourself if it helps.
The drills in this lesson use short, familiar phrases so that reading ahead is easy and you can feel the effect. Later lessons will make the words harder, but the habit is the same: the eyes lead, the hands follow, and neither waits for the other. Your consistency number is the clearest sign it is working.
as soon as at the same time in the long run one after another