Typing race: type against the clock together
Everyone gets the same text and types it out as fast as they can. The lanes pull apart as you go and your speed runs alongside. No account needed: open a race, share the code, and the rest of the group is in.
How it works
Warm up on your own first
The tool opens with a text and nothing else. Click the box and start: your speed in words per minute appears straight away. This is also what you get when you have no race on the go.
Open a race and read out the code
Pick a name, press "Start a race" and you get a code of four characters. Write it on the board or share the link. Everyone who types it in lands in the same race.
Start once everybody is in
The waiting room shows who has arrived. Whoever opened the race presses start, and every screen counts down from three together.
Watch the lanes pull apart
Each racer has a lane and moves along it as more of the text comes out right. First to the finish tops the result, with their speed and accuracy beside them.
With a class, or with a few friends
Put the tool on the classroom board, open a race and write the code up large beside it. The class types the code into their own laptop or Chromebook and picks a name. No account, nothing to install.
Leave the board on the track while they type. That is half the fun: the lanes drift apart in front of everybody at once. The text itself they read off their own screen.
A race takes about a minute. That makes it a good way to close a lesson, or something to run three times over when you are working on typing. Anybody who drops out halfway does not hold the rest up: the result fills in as people come across the line.
It does not have to be a class, mind. A race is a code and a link, so a club, a family at the kitchen table or a group chat works just as well: whoever types the code in is in the same race, wherever they happen to be sitting.
What words per minute means
A "word" on any typing test is five characters, spaces included. That is a convention rather than a real word, and that is exactly what makes it useful: the number here is the same number other typing tests give, so it can be compared.
For a sense of scale: a child who is still learning manages 15 to 25 words a minute, someone who touch-types sits around 50 to 70, and past 100 is exceptional. What matters is the growth, not the number.
The accuracy beside it is how many of your keystrokes landed. Fast and sloppy buys very little here: a mistake has to be corrected before you can carry on, so ten of them cost more time than they save.
The challenge of the week
Every week there is one text that is the same for everybody. You type it on your own and your time goes on that week's leaderboard. Try as often as you like; your best attempt counts.
This half does need an account. A leaderboard is only worth reading if you are the same row next week, and a browser without a login cannot promise that. The races themselves stay open to everyone.
The board shows your first name and the initial of the rest, and nothing else. A name given in order to sign in is not a name anybody meant to publish.
What there is to practise
Typing is a motor skill, like tying a shoelace: you get better at it in short, frequent goes rather than in one long sitting. Three races at the end of a lesson do more than half an hour on a Friday afternoon.
The gain is not in moving faster but in looking less. Keep your hands on the right keys and stop watching the keyboard and the speed follows on its own. Agree that the text above the box is what gets read, not the keys below it.
The texts here are real sentences rather than lists of words, with capitals, commas and full stops. That is deliberate: sentences are what anybody actually types, and the little fingers and the shift key are part of the job.
Frequently asked questions
Does everybody need an account?
No. Opening a race and joining one need no sign-in at all; they type a name and that is it. Only the challenge of the week asks for an account, because it carries a leaderboard that runs from week to week.
How long does a race stay up?
One day. After that the code is gone and the link leads nowhere. A race belongs to the hour it was run in; open a new one for the next lesson.
How many people can join one race?
Sixty, so two classes together fit. The track stays readable up to about thirty lanes; past that it gets narrow.
Can somebody type an unpleasant name?
Names are checked against a list of swear words in Dutch, English and German, including spellings with digits or dots in them. It is a sieve and not a lock: somebody determined will get past it. That is why the track stands at the top of the screen, where everybody can see it.
Which name goes on the weekly leaderboard?
Your first name and the initial of the rest, so "Sam B.". Your full name and your email address never appear on a page anybody else can see.
Can the speed be cheated?
The clock runs on the server, from the moment the race started to the moment the text is finished. The browser reports one thing only: how many keystrokes went wrong. A speed no human reaches is not recorded.
Does it work on Chromebooks and tablets?
On a Chromebook or laptop it works as intended. On a tablet without a keyboard you can join, but a typing race on an on-screen keyboard is a different contest.
Can I choose the text myself?
Not yet. The texts are short pieces of about a minute, written per language: the English race is English sentences rather than a translation of a Dutch one.
Other tools
- Timer
Countdown timer with large digits and a sound at the end.
- Whiteboard
Write and draw on the board, with markers, an eraser and lines or squares.
- Maths flash cards
Sums flash up on the board one at a time while the class writes the answers down.
- Verb tenses
Fill the right verb form into the sentence. Present, past and present perfect, with sentences about football, gaming or holidays.