During last night’s class, we received some great advice on speed building. Since there are so many of us are trying to reach our ultimate goal of 225 wpm, I thought I would share her advice here on my blog.
She asked if anyone in the class was in the habit of mouthing the words of her dictation. One gal raised her hand. Then she asked if anyone was in the habit of repeating her dictation silently to themselves in their head. At that point, I raised my hand. She told us that we needed to break that habit right away. And here’s why: “If I’m dictating at 60 words per minute,” she said, “and you’re repeating everything you hear, you’re actually hearing 120 words per minute.” You need to train your brain to transcribe from the initial word you hear, not the word you repeat to yourself. It makes perfect sense. Now if only I could get my brain to comply . . .
One of my classmates from my theory class had the exact same problem with mentally repeating the words. My teacher suggested putting a pencil/pen/straw sideways in her mouth and holding it there with her lips while practicing. I can't say I've done it myself so I don't know how it works. But hey it's something to try! Oh, and she's still in class with us, working on her 150s.
ReplyDeleteI found myself repeating words again during practice last night. I'm going to try your suggestion about the pencil. This is one habit I need to break NOW.
ReplyDeleteI talked to the girl I was telling you about, and this is what she said: "One thing I found to work really well was to have the television on in the background - not so loud that it is hard for you to concentrate on what you are supposed to be writing, but just enough so that a very tiny bit of my attention is on it. I still do that every time I practice at home. Otherwise if I'm not by a computer I'll have like a document out or something I can look at to put some of my attention on it."
ReplyDeleteHope that helps