Learning the Home Position

Touch typing, typing without looking at the keyboard, starts from the home position, the basic place where your fingers rest. However fast a typist is, their fingers always set out from this position and come back to it after each keystroke. This page explains how to find the home position, where to put your fingers, and how to practice until it becomes second nature, following the ranks of Kneading Cat Typing.

What the home position is

The home position is your fingers lined up on the middle row of the keyboard, the row with A and J. From the little finger, the left hand rests on A, S, D and F; from the index finger, the right hand rests on J, K, L and the symbol key to the right of L. Both thumbs rest lightly on the space bar.

From this base, almost every key is within reach by moving one finger just up, just down or a little to the side. Put the other way round, if your base is off, every key ends up slightly off too. If you make a lot of typos, the first thing to check is whether your fingers are going back to the home position.

Find it by the bumps on F and J

On most keyboards, the F and J keys have a small bump on their surface. It is there so you can find the spots for your index fingers without looking down. When you put your hands on the keyboard, first find these bumps with your index fingers, then line up the other fingers on the same row.

The on-screen keyboard at the bottom of Kneading Cat Typing marks F and J with a small line under the letter, just like a real keyboard. The key you press lights up on screen, so you can check which key your finger hit without looking at your hands. While you are typing a question, the next key to press is marked too.

Finger placement and which keys each finger covers

Each finger on the home position is basically responsible for the keys directly above and below it. For example, the left middle finger rests on D and also covers E above it and C below it. Only the index fingers cover one extra column toward the center: the left index finger takes G, T and B as well as the F column, and the right index finger takes H, Y and N as well as the J column, so they have more keys than the other fingers.

The number row is two rows away from the home position, too far to reach by just stretching a finger. You lift your whole hand slightly to reach it and come straight back after the keystroke. In this app, 6 is typed with the left hand and 7 with the right.

Do not press your fingers into the keys; keep them gently curved so the fingertips just touch the keys. Keeping your wrists slightly raised rather than pressed onto the desk makes your fingers easier to move.

Make “type, then return” a habit

The most important part of learning the home position is bringing your finger back after each keystroke. If you reach for the next key without returning, the distance changes every time and the key positions never settle in. If you learn every key as “which direction and how far from the home position”, the same movement reaches the same key every time, without looking.

It is fine to be slow at first. Think about speed only once returning comes naturally. Scores in this app count only correctly typed characters, and you cannot move on after a typo until you fix it, so typing steadily and accurately raises your score more than rushing does.

The order of practice in the ranks

The ranks in Kneading Cat Typing widen the range of keys one row at a time, centered on the home position. You level up the right and left hands alternately, then move on to the two-handed ranks.

1. Apprentice (home row only): the right hand uses only h, j, k and l; the left hand only a, s, d, f and g. Your fingers move the least here, so this is where you learn where they rest and the motion of pressing and returning.
2. Stretch (the row above): the row above is added to the home row. Questions such as “aq sw de fr gt”, which go back and forth between a home key and the key right above it, teach the distance to stretch and come back.
3. Claw Sharpening (the row below): the home row and the row below. Reaching the lower row curls the fingers instead, so it is practiced as a separate feel from the upper row.
4. Full-Fledged (all three rows): the upper, home and lower rows mixed. Up to here, you alternate between the right hand (Right Paw) and the left hand (Left Paw).
5. Kneading (both hands): in the same order, starting from both hands’ home row and widening to the upper and lower rows.
6. Numbers (the number row): practice the number row. Questions such as “j7j8j9j0” reach from F or J to a number and back, so you learn the numbers while keeping the distance from the home position in mind.

The home-row-only ranks may feel too easy, but getting your fingers used to where they rest there makes new keys in later ranks much less confusing. Each rank is described in detail on the Ranks page.

Checking that you have learned it

You can tell whether the home position has sunk in by asking yourself: can you place both hands correctly using only the bumps on F and J, without looking? When you make a typo, can you tell which finger slipped in which direction? After typing a few characters, are your fingers back on the home position on their own? If any of these feel shaky, go back to the previous rank and retype the same questions accurately. Questions from ranks you have passed can be retyped at any time in practice mode.