FoundationsLesson 11 of 30 · Reaching up
Q and P: little fingers up
The little fingers take the last two letters of the top row. P is common and awkward; Q is rare and always brings a U.
- New keys
- QP
- To pass
- Done when the check reaches 92% accuracy and 12 words a minute.
Lesson 11 is locked
It opens when you pass the check in lesson 10 (W and O: ring fingers up). Lessons open one at a time, in order.
The top row ends with Q above A and P above the semicolon, both little-finger keys. Q is the rarest letter in English and nearly always followed by U, which is a right index finger key, so a Q is really the start of a two-hand pattern: left little finger up, right index finger up. P is a different matter. It is common, it lives on the weakest finger of the right hand, and it is reached upward, which is the hardest direction for a little finger.
The little finger cannot reach up without the hand's help, so a small rotation of the wrist toward the outside is normal and correct here. What you must not do is lift the hand off the home row. The index finger stays on J, the wrist turns a few degrees, the little finger reaches P, and the wrist turns back. Practise it slowly and it becomes a single small motion.
With this lesson the top row is complete, and so is the majority of the alphabet you will use. The remaining letters live on the bottom row and are the subject of the next unit. Before that, the review lesson will give you a full run at everything so far, without capitals or full stops, which come later.
quite quiet people paper up put keep help type quote