I wanted to take typing in grade 10, but my mum wouldn’t let me. “Why on earth would you ever need that skill?” This was in the late 70s. Yeah, thanks mum. I took Art instead that year for my bird course.
I’m debating which answer to put down. I don’t have to look for normal typing. For numbers, though, it’s a bit more complex: I don’t technically have to look, but I find myself doing it anyways as a habit I picked up in my high school* typing class. And, like Chefguy, I do fumble more often in that row.
I also never got over the need to correct as I type. But at least I don’t really halt anymore doing it. Reaching for the backspace key to fix the error is automatic.
*I was the last group not to have to also take a typing class in junior high. I actually installed the special typing software on the old, non-networked lab computers, many of which did not have functioning disk drives.
I like that test. Curious to see how fast Dopers type, I posted a poll.
I assume that we touch type at a higher rate than the general population, and more quickly.
My mom made me learn to type the summer before I started Junior HS because my last paper in 6th grade had to be handed in typed, and when I asked her to type it up for me she said it was the first and last time she’d do it.
She taught me the way she’d been taught herself, “back in the day”: on a manual typewriter (this was in 1981 so we had no computer yet anyway, but electric typewriters were pretty standard in offices). I learned the hand positions on the home row; then, I did a week of drills of just typing the alphabet over and over on a blank page of paper. It was like the scene in “The Shining” except my page would be filled with just “abcdefg”.
Then, she started giving me a full page of text to replicate by typing out. No Wite-Out, no mistakes, or I’d have to do it over. I had all day to do it (I was home for the summer) but when she got home, it’d have to be done. I got really good, really fast with that incentive. In less than 4 weeks I wasn’t even looking at the keyboard. By the end of the summer, I was really flying, having to pace myself to avoid jamming the keys together, and doing the sheet twice or three times just for the fun of it.
When I was 17 I found out how just fast I was. I looked for summer jobs, including secretarial temp work as part of an placement agency in Manhattan - answering phones and typing, to fill in for a day or two for sick receptionists. There was an in-person interview to see how personable and presentable I was and one skills test, a typing test, on an electric typewriter with a backspace correction. I scored 95 WPM and was the top scorer of the 4 people (out of that day’s testing pool of 20) to meet their minimum requirement of 60 WPM, which seemed ridiculously slow to me.
I can touch-type, but with the iPad it’s more peck. Not hunt and peck; I know where the letters are so I don’t hunt for them. Just peck.
As for my kids, they all have to take typing in elementary school, it has replaced penmanship as a subject. They spent maybe 3 weeks tops at some point learning to write in script, mainly so they could develop a signature that wasn’t printed, unlike what I remember doing with booklets with dotted lines and whatnot in both third AND fourth grade.
My two oldest children touch type well enough to use my “Das Keyboard Ultimate” which is completely blank, so I guess it’s worked. That and all the computer time they log.
Funny thing about the MUDs mentioned by a few people - I installed an old friend, AberMUD (Dyrt), to run on an old Linux laptop in my house and showed them how to run in the world, and they’ve really taken to it. So that helps too 
I took Typing 1 in my sophomore year of high school, since I’d been assured it was an easy A. Never needed to type a paper in high school, since this was before computers were commonly available, and never went to college either.
Fifteen years later I bought my first computer and damned if that muscle memory didn’t come right back. I average about 70 wpm.
My elementary school had computer lab, too, but we never did typing. We did math and grammar. It was my favorite class because we could move at our own pace, and even could test out of stuff you already knew. Too bad we also had to do those same classes the conventional way. Keyboarding would have made more sense.
BTW: I went with fluent, per twicks’s last post.
I use a self-taught system that, for all intents and purposes, works just as well as touch-typing works for others. My hands have memorized the distance between the keys so I really don’t have to look down (I played a lot of piano growing up, so my muscle memory is fairly well-refined). Occasionally I’ll get one letter off (which results in funny-looking transpositions like ;p; instead of lol), but since I’m looking at the screen while I type, it’s easy to correct.
I’ve tried to learn how to type “the right way” many times in my life, using various software programs, but my touch-typing speed never came close to my self-taught speed. Using my own method, I am capable of burst-typing while listening at 100 wpm (which I have to do at least a few times a day at work, when fast-talkers report a claim). But I sustain 85ish wpm on an average day. I’m a *very *fast typer, and I don’t need no stinkin’ touch-typing.
I’ve considered trying a dvorak keyboard layout at times, but I don’t know whether my work keyboard would support it. Also if I ever had to change workstations, I’d be royally effed.
I was put into a typing class in high school back in the 70s, very much over my protests. I became decent enough at it. However, the thing that really improved my speed and accuracy was typing in computer programs from magazines. Yes, magazines would PRINT lines of code for the users to type in and save. I got very, very accurate, because there’s nothing like spending a couple of hours typing something in, and then having to search through all those lines of code to see if you put + instead of =. And I gained speed when I played the old text adventure games like Zork and Scott Adams Adventures, though I picked up some bad habits, like not capitalizing when I should and not allowing a space or two after a period.
I know some of the special symbols, but not all.
Not to pick on you at all, but I think this is why so many people have faster speeds now, not just the mechanics of improved keyboards. “Back in my day,” you were NOT allowed to look at the monitor or the piece of paper coming out of the typewriter as you were learning. Eyes were glued to the sheet of paper you were copying, and in fact most of the time, our monitors were covered with a sheet of paper (and our hands with a plastic shield to prevent us looking at our hands.)
The idea was…how do you most quickly reproduce a page of typewritten words. To be fast, you couldn’t waste time looking back and forth!
Today, of course, we have copiers and scanners for reproducing stuff, so it’s not a detriment to look at the screen. And yes, that makes me much faster. Typing stuff as it comes out of my head, I type many more than the WPM I type on a typing test!
I was trained in high school to use all fingers, but somewhere along the line for some strange reason I started using just my index fingers. I really don’t need to look at the keyboard unless I get dis-oriented and need to reposition my fingers; I voted “haltingly” tho it’s pretty smooth in fact with relatively few mistakes.
This! I took typing in high school when it was part of the “business” (read “secretarial”) curriculum because I knew I’d need to type papers in college, and we got yelled at for having eyes anywhere but on the copy.
My son types using his own system that I feel guilty for having fostered by letting him use an old laptop of mine with a bad hinge. He got in the habit of supporting the lid with one hand and typing with the other, and his one-handed method is now thoroughly ingrained. (He’s a speed demon, though.)
That sums up my typing. I use two or three fingers on each hand (plus thumb for space bar) but my hands move around the keyboard rather than staying over the home keys, and I don’t use the “right” fingers. But I usually only glance at the keyboard once or twice per sentence and I got 60wpm in the speed test on the other thread.
Right at 60 WPM and it frustrates me that I can’t go faster than that.
Anyhow, I’ve had some problems with my finger joints lately, so there have been times that I hunt and peck when they’re acting up. I noticed the oddest thing: I had to actually think about the spelling of a word. It made it difficult to compose sentences because the spelling distracted me. However, when I touch type, the words just sort of flow out as I’m thinking about them.
Is that weird?
I need to look at the keyboard occasionally (I’d guess once every 2-3 minutes, not enough to slow me down much, unless I’m typing special characters), but type pretty damn fast when I know what I want to say, so I put myself in the ‘touch type well’ category, geezer division.
I’d taken a typing class back in high school, but never was particularly good at it (or had more than occasional reason to be) until the Internet came along >25 years later. The combination of a computer keyboard (v. the cheap manual I used to be stuck with) and a lot of posting on the Dope, really amped up my speed.
Like WhyNot describes, I was formally taught to touch type but I had already been typing for years before I learned this in class, so my touch typing does contain some elements of a unique personal style. Interestingly, my school seems to have been one of the last holdouts to teach penmanship - I recall learning cursive writing in 3rd grade, in 1999, and learning to touch type a few years later.
That typing test website told me I type 101 WPM, with 97 words correct. I’ve previously scored 97 WPM on that and similar tests. I get up to blazing speeds when I know exactly what I’m going to type beforehand, such as when I’m typing up a written document or I’m in the middle of an instant message conversation and I’ve already thought out my contribution. I’ve also taken dictation in interviews, which is nice because it’s just for me so my typos aren’t a problem. My backspace key has a big shiny spot…
I learned to touchtype 42 years ago. I touch type so well that when I broke my wrist, I first had a full cast (palm to halfway up my upper arm). When that came off and was replaced with a small one (palm to just below the elbow), I touched type with it on.
I had people dropping their jaws as they watched me.
I’m essentially a self-taught touch-typist. MUDding definitely helped with that (if with nothing else in college).
I took typing in school - I had hoped to meet women. Back then, it was rare a man took a typing course.
Since I write software, it has served me well to know how to type. I type moderately well, although I would have to look to see the number keys. (I usually use the number pad, which I also touch type on.)