E and I: reaching up

The row above the home row is called the top row, and the first two keys you take from it are E and I. Both belong to the middle fingers: the left one reaches up and slightly left from D to E, the right one reaches up and slightly left from K to I. That slight lean to the left is because keyboard rows are staggered, each one shifted a little relative to the one below, so an upward reach is never perfectly vertical. Your finger will find the angle quickly; just make sure it starts from its home key each time.

E is the most common letter in English and I is not far behind, which is why they come first. Together with the home row they give you an enormous number of real words, and from here on the word drills start to feel like language rather than exercise. It is also why this lesson is worth a little extra time: a reach you make hundreds of times a day should be a reach you never think about.

An upward reach has a specific failure mode: the finger comes down on the key below the target on the way back and types it. If you see stray Ds or Ks in your drill, that is what is happening. Lift the finger a fraction more on the return, and let it settle rather than drop. The same caution applies to every reach you learn from now on.

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