I have no magic bullet for you, but lots of practice works. Spend a lot of time on the keyboard and do a lot of practice tests. Like a video game, I’d do the same test over and over until I got faster. (I had a quiet help desk job in high school and when the calls weren’t coming in, I’d practice my typing.) Avoid practicing with numbers at the beginning. I used something like Mavis Beacon back in the day. My kids use this: https://www.typingclub.com.
Once you get proficient (whatever that means to you), start writing more. Long form writing–journaling, nanowrimo, anything–keeps your hands on the keyboard and when your mind is on output it’s easier to forget the keys and type intuitively.
iOS doesn’t allow this. It doesn’t bother me much, though, because tapping on the phone doesn’t really feel like typing and I never forgot the qwerty layout.
Yes, in landscape, anyway. It requires a different cadence since you can’t roll onto several keys at once to quickly make a word.
I recently got a new keyboard and decided I’d try typing “correctly” for a change; the way I learned many moons ago in high school typing class. After about two days of frustration I reverted back to my standard way of typing; all fingers left hand, two fingers right hand. This way was good enough for a 40-year work career where nobody. complained about my typing speed. Plus, you know - old dogs and new tricks.
I learned proper “touch typing” in 8th grade as it was a required class for all students. It was a full semester class that met 3 times a week and required daily practice. I hated the class, but I’m thankful for it every day since it has made my 35-year career as a programmer a lot easier.
That said….
the way that I was taught….
NEVER look at your hands. Watch only your output. Don’t tell me that you don’t/can’t do it that way; that’s the way it is done and how zillions of secretaries could type 90+ wpm.
Practice, practice and more practice. It must be systematic, and we were taught with a metronome. You must aim for constant rhythm. Turning on sound feedback on software keyboards helps. Don’t tell me that you gave up after two days. You can’t learn it that fast. It requires considerable dedicated practice. Old-school secretaries went to school to learn it.
Some people are just better at it than others. I only have mediocre speed. But I’m more interested in accuracy. I don’t want to invoke spellcheck any more than necessary. That takes up time in my opinion.
I find that proper typing is impossible on small keyboards. Unless you have fingers the size of toothpicks, I don’t think it’s possible on a phone. I even have trouble on the iPad Pro in portrait mode.
Any other games to recommend? I couldn’t get the one to work.****
I type with one hand. I know where the keys are at. I am the fastest one-handed typist you’d ever see. If I learned to type, I could write a book as long and as incoherent as Ulysses (because I love to write as it is).
I have carpal tunnel BAD. I think it is the trackpad mostly. My neurologist suggested a hand brace which I already have and ice, to anyone who might have it too. Very painful.
So typing like I am suppose to do would REALLY help. I did have sponge bob helping me a few years ago. That actually helped but still I type too fast with one hand.
I think my speed is 10 wpm and muchos boo boos. But I like that Typing Club. Nice and, forgive the inadvertent pun, low key! Oh boy do I ever look at the keys! I mean, when I am not starting to practice!
We ought to meet at intervals and discuss what, if any, and actually the EXTENT of our improvement.
I learnt by concentrating on not looking at the keyboard. I started with my name over and over, then short sentences that I had thought of just before typing (not whilst typing) - for example - “I am going to the shop today”. I’d do it over and over until I made less mistakes. Then I’d transcribe the book I was reading - just the odd page here and there so I could practice reading and typing at the same time.
This was all pre-smartphone, but I’ll say I touch typed on a dumb Nokia (before predictive text) before I touch typed a QWERTY keyboard (remember typing as 222,44,777,4444,7777??).
I’m sure there are apps around that help improve speed and accuracy that have a bit more science that I had, but it all boils down to committing and doing it consistently and often.
Learn to type your name whilst looking over and over, trying to get gradually faster. After a while you’ll find you can do it looking at the keyboard generally but not at every letter. Once you get good at that, try doing it looking at the screen and glancing if you forget. Depending on where you’re at, getting to the point where you’re not circling a finger looking for a letter, or knowing whether it is right finger or left finger is good progress.
All very unscientific but it’s how I learnt and I touch type as fast as my fingers will let me now!
Funny thought - we all still type with just two digits, it just happens to be with our thumbs on a tiny keyboard
I learnt to ‘touch type’ in my late fifties. I now type very fast indeed compared to decades of two finger pecking and looking at the keyboard. However there is no way it can be done without some friction at first. Not as far as I know, you also have to have a lot of self discipline during the slow stage.
I was fortunate to be in a window without much to do at the time I suppose? I used the Mavis Beacon chart, not even the courses, just an old chart that had been used on training typewriters. I do look at the keyboard for numbers and the modifier keys though apart from Shift. Go figure, I should train myself out of that I guess.
Yeah, I have really reduced my use of the iPhone as a consequence of the two thumbs limitation: iPads too really. Mostly way too slow for me now. I tried dictation but beyond simple messages I found it cumbersome, full of errors and atually quite slow. Predictie the same.
I do sometimes use the copy and paste function to put things into Ulysses which I have on the phone as well as my Macbook Pro.
I was in the same position as OP 2 years ago. I was typing with 2 fingers and reaching 60 WPM on average.
I started learning on typing.com and in the starting I slowed down to 20-25WPM but it took me less than 3 weeks (30m everyday) to reach 60 WPM on touch typing.
I’m still around 60-70 WPM but I absolutely love typing. Using all fingers stimulates the brain and it feels like a relaxing meditation. I find reasons to type everyday now.
