Touch typing and ‘hunt and peck’ are the two most popular methods for training your fingers in keyboarding. With touch typing, your fingers are trained to touch relevant keys without looking at the keyboard. The method of typing with two ore more fingers is commonly known as ‘hunt and peck’, where you need to visually scan the keys and look back up at the screen. When you choose the most suitable method for yourself, you will learn to type faster. This blog discusses both touch typing and ‘hunt and peck’ and considers different factors so you can decide which is the better option for learning to type quickly.
Speed
With touch typing, you do not need to look down at the keyboard, which makes the method less tiring for your eyes. It is ideally suited for transcription, taking notes from the board and especially suited to creative writing. Touch typing is usually much faster than ‘hunt and peck’ and even common sense would dictate that using all your fingers and thumbs should be far easier and quicker than using just a few fingers when searching for individual keys across the keyboard.
When you touch type, you can attain the speed of up to 120 words per minute (wpm). The faster you type, the easier it is to reach these higher speeds. Remember, not everyone has the same finger flexibility to type quickly. People usually type at between 40 to 50 words per minute. However, if you type at 75 words per minute, it is considered a high speed and at a professional level.
Accuracy
Typing with two fingers, ‘hunt and pecking’, tends to be less accurate as you continually need to look down at the keyboard. This continually shifts focus from keyboard to screen and often results in time-consuming corrections. A touch typist will read as they type and correct mistakes as they go along. A touch typist knows instantly when a mistake has been made.
Touch typing is by far the better option over the ‘hunt and peck’ method. It really is worth devoting the time and effort required to learn to type using all your ten fingers and thumb.
If you want to become a typing expert or just a good typist, learn touch typing. Invest in the best touch typing software or take guidance from a touch typing tutor.
