With fingers anchored on the home row, every other key is reached by extending the assigned finger up, down, or to the side. The top row is accessed by stretching upward: the left pinky reaches for Q, the left ring finger for W, the left middle finger for E, and the left index finger splits coverage between R and T. On the right side, the right index finger handles Y and U, the right middle finger takes I, the right ring finger reaches O, and the right pinky presses P.
The bottom row mirrors this logic with downward reaches. The left index finger covers Z through V and B, with V and B sharing the index despite being far apart, while the left middle and ring fingers handle C and X respectively. The right index finger is responsible for M, N, and the comma, with the right ring finger covering the period. Punctuation marks like the semicolon, apostrophe, and slash are assigned to the right pinky, which stretches both up and down to reach them.
Numbers across the top row are typed using the same finger that controls the key directly below them, so the left pinky handles 1, the right pinky handles 0, and the index fingers split 4, 5, 6, and 7 between them. Special keys like Enter, Tab, Backspace, and Shift each have a recommended finger: Enter and Backspace are typically pressed with the right pinky, Tab with the left pinky, and Shift is always pressed with the pinky of the hand opposite the one typing the letter. Using the opposite hand for Shift keeps the home row anchored and produces smoother, more balanced capital-letter typing.