It’s pretty much set in stone to people that typing is a very useful skill that can serve you for a lifetime, since phones and computers are necessary tools in our everyday lives.

In order to improve typing skills, two separate and distinct skill sets are needed. First, you need to improve your typing skills by learning to type faster, which is the common one. The standard unit of measure in typing speed is Words per Minute.

Anyone can just sit down and smash away at the keys on the keyboard at fast speeds, but that sometimes contradicts the second skill you need if you want to improve your typing immensely: typing accuracy.

Typing tests measure two things, speed and mistakes, so when you take a typing speed test, do not look only at your speed, but review the number of your mistakes and concentrate on reducing your mistakes in future tests rather than increasing your typing speed. The end result will be increased consistency.

Improve Typing Skills: Improve Words per Minute (WPM)

To begin, what specifically does WPM mean? How is it measured?

Words per minute (WPM) is the measure of typing speed. For the purposes of WPM measurement a word is standardized to five characters or keystrokes. So, "fifth" counts as one word, while "fifteenth" counts as two.  In studies of average computer users, the average rate for transcription was 33 words per minute, and only 19 words per minute for composition. In the same study, when the group was dividing into "fast", "moderate" and "slow" groups, the average speeds were 40 wpm, 35 wpm, and 23 wpm respectively.