Typing Instructor: teach | The Future Market

The instructor's job, and what research says

In simple words

A swimming coach does not need to be the fastest swimmer. They need to see what each swimmer does, and give one helpful change at a time. A typing instructor does the same with fingers and keys.

Before this course: Professional Typing: transcription and data entry (course 13.9.3). You can already touch type, measure gross WPM, net WPM and accuracy (course 13.9.2), use the numeric keypad, enter data with checks and transcribe audio with a style sheet. Now you teach and coach other people. Lines marked "Tip" are practical teaching advice, not research findings.

Key facts

One large study helps you talk about speed honestly:

Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta (CHI 2018) studied 168,960 volunteers who typed 15 sentences in an online test, about 136 million keystrokes.
They counted one word as any five characters, the same rule as course 13.9.2.
Average speed was 51.56 WPM (standard deviation 20.2). The fastest reached 120 WPM or more.
People who said they had typing training averaged about 5 WPM faster than those who had not (54.35 versus 49.00). The authors call this a relatively small difference.
Faster typists generally made fewer errors. Slow typists left more errors uncorrected, which the authors say could mean they are less able to spot their mistakes.
People who reported using more fingers were faster on average (r = 0.38).
Limits: the volunteers chose to take part through a typing-test website, and were mainly teenagers and young adults, about two-thirds from the US. The numbers describe that group, not your class.
The same paper describes an earlier motion-capture study in which some people who did not use all their fingers, and were not trained in touch typing, reached speeds similar to touch typists. Consistent finger use and little hand movement predicted good performance.

What this means for teaching (Tip):

Do not grade learners against "average WPM". Compare each learner with their own last result (course 13.9.2).
Teach accuracy and consistency first. In this study, speed and fewer errors went together.

Step by step

Write down your own baseline: gross WPM, net WPM and accuracy, using the same test as in course 13.9.2.
Read the study facts above and write two sentences you could say to a learner about speed, without promising a number.
Make an intake sheet for learners: goal (school, job, data entry), current results, how many fingers they use, any pain or difficulty.
Run the intake with one volunteer learner.
Agree on one personal goal, such as "accuracy of 97% or better on a 2-minute test" (Tip).
Check: the goal is about the learner's own result, not about beating an average.

Watch on YouTube

What's the best way to teach touch typing to students?Typesy · YouTube · youtube.com

Videos by other creators on YouTube, for reference. They are not made by or affiliated with The Future Market.

LESSON 01The instructor's job, and what research says

LESSON 01 / ANIMATED LESSON / AI VOICE00:00 / 01:00

Voice

Read the video script

[Host] "How fast should my learner type? The honest answer: faster than last month."
[Text on screen: 168,960 volunteers, average 51.56 WPM] "One huge online study found an average around 52 words per minute."
[Text on screen: Volunteers, mostly young, self-selected] "But those were volunteers on a typing website. Not your class."
[Host] "Trained typists were only a little faster. Fewer errors went with more speed. So coach accuracy and consistency."

Try it now

Write a half-page "How I talk about speed" note for your learners, using only the study facts in this lesson and its limits.

ClaudeStuck? Copy a ready-made prompt for Claude

Copy this, open Claude, paste it, and Claude will walk you through the lesson step by step.

For a grown-up: Claude is for adults (18+). Copy this, paste it into Claude, and use the answer to explain the lesson to your child.

I'm learning "Typing Instructor: teach" on The Future Market. Lesson 1: "The instructor's job, and what research says".

What the lesson teaches:
- Dhakal, Feit, Kristensson and Oulasvirta (CHI 2018) studied 168,960 volunteers who typed 15 sentences in an online test, about 136 million keystrokes.
- They counted one word as any five characters, the same rule as course 13.9.2.
- Average speed was 51.56 WPM (standard deviation 20.2). The fastest reached 120 WPM or more.
- People who said they had typing training averaged about 5 WPM faster than those who had not (54.35 versus 49.00). The authors call this a relatively small difference.
- Faster typists generally made fewer errors. Slow typists left more errors uncorrected, which the authors say could mean they are less able to spot their mistakes.
- People who reported using more fingers were faster on average (r = 0.38).
- Limits: the volunteers chose to take part through a typing-test website, and were mainly teenagers and young adults, about two-thirds from the US. The numbers describe that group, not your class.

The exercise I'm working on:
Write a half-page "How I talk about speed" note for your learners, using only the study facts in this lesson and its limits.

I'm stuck. Please:
1. Explain the main idea in plain, simple words with one everyday example.
2. Walk me through the exercise one small step at a time. Ask me what I've done so far before giving the next step.
3. Don't just give me the final answer. Help me do it myself, and check my work when I share it.

I'm a parent helping my child (about 8 years old) with a lesson called "The instructor's job, and what research says" from the course "Typing Instructor: teach".

Here's what the lesson says:
A swimming coach does not need to be the fastest swimmer. They need to see what each swimmer does, and give one helpful change at a time. A typing instructor does the same with fingers and keys.

The activity:
Write a half-page "How I talk about speed" note for your learners, using only the study facts in this lesson and its limits.

Please explain this so an 8-year-old understands: short sentences, a fun everyday example, and no hard words.
Then give me 3 simple questions I can ask my child to check they understood, and a way to do the activity together, one tiny step at a time.

Open Claude

Sources

Dhakal V, Feit AM, Kristensson PO, Oulasvirta A, Observations on Typing from 136 Million Keystrokes, CHI 2018: doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174220
Aalto University, project page and paper PDF: userinterfaces.aalto.fi/136Mkeystrokes/

My notes

I learned this