✏️a mark each birthday🌱you have grown🪜your own ladder🌟a careful best
Every mark is your own: it races only the mark just before it.
The big ideaWords a minute counts words typed in a minute. The best you race is your own.
How it works
Your own best is the top step of your own ladder. Everybody's marks are their own, so you only race your own last best.
A best only counts when it is careful. A rushed run full of slips, or a run with lines skipped, is not a best.
Typists give a best in words a minute: the words typed in one minute. A typist's word is five key presses, spaces too, so fifty key presses make ten words.
Nothing in this lesson is timed. The Typing Race in the Game Room can time a run, and it only compares you with your own best.
What counts as a best.Every five key presses make one word.
Example 1: Count words from key presses
A typist's word is five key presses, and spaces count too.
Fifty key presses make ten words, because 50 ÷ 5 = 10.
It does not matter whether the words are short or long.
Example 2: A bigger count
A hundred key presses make twenty words, because 100 ÷ 5 = 20.
A hundred and fifty key presses make thirty words, because 150 ÷ 5 = 30.
Example 3: Does it count as a best?
A careful run that is a little better than your last one: it counts.
A rushed run full of slips: it does not count, however quick.
A run with lines skipped: it does not count either.
Example 4: Pick whose best to beat
Dax's best belongs to Dax, and the best typist's belongs to them.
Your own last careful run is the one that is yours to beat.
Next time try one step higher or stay where you are: both are fine.
Words to know
best
The top step of your own ladder: your own careful run to beat.
words a minute
The words typed in one minute.
key press
One tap on a key. Five key presses make a typist's word, spaces too.
Watch out
Comparing yourself with a cousin or the best typist: their best is theirs, and yours is the one to beat.
A quick run with slips kept in is not a best: careful comes first.
A slow day never knocks the ladder down, so your best stays your best.
One word is five key presses, not one and not ten.
Try it
Whose best are you trying to beat?
How many key presses make one word?
Does a rushed run full of slips count as a best?
Where can a run be timed against your own best?
Answers: 1. Only your own · 2. Five · 3. No · 4. The Typing Race in the Game Room
Try at homeTell a grown-up in your own words what your own best means. Then pick one small thing to make smoother this week, such as keeping an even beat or fixing a slip with one backspace. If you like to race, ask a grown-up to open the Typing Race in the Game Room with you, and race only your own last best.
For grown-upsKeep a pencil mark or a page of dated lines for your child's best, and praise a smoother run, never a quicker one.
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