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Top row
The top row is the first time your fingers leave home on purpose. The new skill is not the ten letters themselves. It is reaching up and coming straight back, so the next key starts from the right place. Most of English runs through this row (E, T, O, I, R and U are among the most common letters), so a clean top row pays off in every sentence you type later.
Where your fingers go
- Left hand: Q pinky, W ring, E middle, R and T index.
- Right hand: Y and U index, I middle, O ring, P pinky.
Each finger reaches up and slightly left from its home key. E sits above and a little to the left of D. I sits above and a little to the left of K. The index fingers each cover two keys: R and T for the left hand, U and Y for the right hand.
Technique
Reach from the finger, not the arm
Extend the one finger that needs the key and keep the others near their home keys. If your whole hand lifts to hit E, the other fingers lose their place and the next letter lands wrong.
Return every time
Think of each top-row key as a round trip: up, press, back to home. A word is only finished when the reaching finger is home again. This is what stops your hands drifting upward over a long line.
Watch the index stretch
T and Y are the longest reaches in this lesson. T is the left index moving up and to the right. Y is the right index moving up and to the left. They are neighbours on the keyboard but belong to different hands.
The top-row drill
The drill uses words that lean on the upper keys: we, you, our, type, power, quiet, write, poetry, quote, upper. Home-row letters still appear inside those words, so you practise the return as much as the reach. As in every lesson, there is no backspace. Mistakes are marked and counted, and the line keeps going. WPM, accuracy, progress and errors update as you type.
This lesson unlocks after you finish home row in the same browser. Finishing it unlocks bottom row.
Common mistakes
- Swapping T and Y. Typing Y with the left index feels shorter, so people drift into it. If “type” feels like one hand is doing all the work, both letters went to the same finger. Slow down until the hands alternate.
- Parking on the top row. After a few words the fingers stop coming down and the whole hand hovers one row too high. Then A becomes Q and S becomes W. Tap the F and J bumps between words until returning is automatic.
- Weak pinky on Q and P. Both are rarely used, and that is exactly why they stay slow. Q appears in the drill’s “quiet”, “quite” and “query”. Give them to the pinky anyway.
- Mixing up I and O. I is the middle finger and O is the ring finger. If “our” keeps coming out as “iur”, the middle finger is taking the ring finger’s key.
Practice drills
- Straight-up pairs (2 minutes). de ki fr ju fr ju sw lo aq ;p. Each pair is a home key and the key above it, typed by the same finger.
- Index splits (2 minutes). ftf jyj frf juj, then try, yet, rut, tut, yurt. This separates the two index-finger keys on each side.
- Alternating hands (3 minutes). to, it, or, ye, toe, tie, row, tow, wit. Every letter in these words switches hands, which builds an even rhythm.
- Top plus home (3 minutes). desk, fair, jade, lake, fear, idea, soda, dust. These mix the two rows you know so the return becomes habit.
- Rare letters (1 minute). quip, quit, quota, pique, equip. Two lines of Q and P words, slowly.
How to know you’re ready to move on
- You can type “quiet power” and “write poetry” without looking and without drifting off home row.
- Your accuracy on the drill is around 95 percent over three runs.
- T and Y land on the correct index finger without you thinking about it.
If home-row words start going wrong again during this lesson, go back and run home row once. That is normal, not a setback.
Previous: home row. Next: bottom row. The full sequence is in the learn hub.