The (Not Very Short) Short Version:

We believe steno is a skill that can be used for anything a traditional keyboard is used for. 
Our approach is informed and influenced by the evidence-based learning concepts of desirable difficulty,  interleaving,  scaffolding, separate and connected competencies and differentiated instruction. 

  • The curriculum is designed using a parallel structure of presenting material within a linear structure (learning punctuation, commands, formatting, prefixes/suffixes, as you go instead of one big lesson on punctuation or suffixes or whatever weeks after starting).
    • By exposing and integrating concepts such as these and others right from the beginning in small portions and directly tying these concepts to the consonants, vowels, sounds and key combinations taught in each lesson, retention and comprehension of key concepts is substantially improved.
    • It also makes it easier to learn more advanced concepts later on as one has built up to that concept.
    • This does result in a higher initial mental load but the benefits in long-term retention, engagement, achievement and confidence should be substantial.
    • This (hopefully) provides for those learners who like to jump around from topic to topic and not follow any set order. 
    • Competencies and competency tracking is implemented, differentiating between theory concepts and keyboard knowledge.  Through this, learners can not only track their progress but gain sense of achievement for what they are excelling at even while they are struggling with other aspects of learning steno.  Defining "what is progress", "what are competencies" and tracking both for steno is remarkably difficult to define and implement, so while we have set up this system, we will adapt and adjust it over time to better reflect progress for you.
      • While we provide competency and progress tracking, we do NOT define "graduation."  Instead, we provide a goals system so that each and every student can define for themselves what "graduation" is for them. 
        • Side note:  The above is still a work in progress in many ways, but at least it's progress!
    • To the maximum extent possible, we teach both sides of the keyboard at the same time.
      • The 17 consonants that are represented on both sides of the keyboard are taught individually at the same time.  No more learning the B keystroke one week then the other B keystroke weeks later (or any letter-sound keystroke).  
      • Any punctuation strokes, command key strokes (return, tab, etcetera), Plover functions, briefs and phrases that are associated with a consonant key are taught at the same time as the related letter-sound keystroke.  (Example:  Left hand R- key, right hand -R key, the brief for "are" and R-R as the stroke for return/enter all at the same time.)
    • Specific emphasis and explicit description of theory elements instead of assuming its absorbed/obvious.  Explain not only how to do something, but why it is done that way.  This does result in way overexplaining things at times, but it is better to overexplain to someone who already comprehends a concept than risk someone missing out on a key concept due to us assuming it was obvious and/or understood.
    • Plover Theory is taught.  However, there is significant overlap between StenEd and Plover and the likelihood that many users of StudySteno are prior or current steno students with a background in StenEd is high.  Therefore, we provide examples and explanations of where Plover diverges from StenEd and keep our approach StenEd compatible.  This has the added benefit of providing learners of Plover with greater understanding of why Plover's dictionary entries have so much variety and hopefully reduce confusion and frustration when looking up a word. ("But which one is the right entry!?!"  They all are "right" for different reasons.)
      • While the Plover dictionary is not exactly what one would call Phoenix Theory compatible, we have integrated elements of Phoenix Theory's approach to learning steno.  In particular, we encourage and focus on learning to write phonetically versus "brief all the things all the time" and integrate learning theory while learning the keyboard at the same time.
      • The Plover dictionary has many Magnum theory elements and entries within it and, well, we know some of you just want to "brief all the things all the time".  To the extent possible, we point out and explain these as we can.
      • While it is impossible to create a fully theory-agnostic learn steno course, knowing that users of StudySteno are coming from a variety of steno theory backgrounds or no prior exposure at all, all quizzes, practices, competency tracking and "grading" is based on what word(s) are written and not what strokes are used to write the word.
    • Overall, we stick to using the default Plover dictionary with the one notable exception of contractions.  We use Waleed's brilliant approach to contractions, which is to use the * key for all contractions and provide a separate dictionary we developed using his approach.  Of course, knowing some won't want to learn Waleed's way, we do explain Plover's contractions approach, too.
    • We provide, as much as feasible, "real language" material to practice to versus. set speed practice material.  There's already a ton of set speed practice material freely available (albeit primarily targeting court reporting students and well, a lot of it is pretty boring).  In addition, we link to various Plover and Open Steno Project community lessons and practice sites and strongly encourage their use - they are fantastic!  Therefore, we try to provide practice material that complements these resources instead of cloning/recreating them.  For example, you'll find StenoJig-enabled "One Step Beyond" TV episodes and StenoJig-enabled Librivox audiobook recordings in our practice sections but we don't have a specific practice section for the 10,000 Gutenberg words.  We also aim to provide practice material in a variety of accents and dialects to better mimic real life language.  [This is a never-ending work in progress.]
    • All lessons and practice material are provided in both text and audio and/or video formats.  [This is a work in progress.]  People learn in different ways so whenever possible, we provide the material in a variety of ways whether it be written text, audio lecture, video, or other methods.  Additionally, people are learning in a variety of environments.  What may be conducive to one person's learning style and learning environment may be difficult or even impossible for another.  While there is often a lot of overlap of material, by exposing one to material through a variety of methods, one is more likely to absorb and comprehend the material.
    • Lots of gamification.  Yes, some (most) of it is corny and/or seemingly elementary but there's just not a lot of gamification options freely available that work well with steno, I am not a programmer, and there is no budget to pay for one.  (There's no budget at all, tbh.)
    • Extensive linking to and/or use of opensource and public domain material.  I strongly encouraging learners to explore and utilize all the various other Plover and steno learning websites.  StudySteno was explicitly designed to NOT be a "clone" or "variation" of the absolutely amazing Plover and Open Steno community resources but to complement the existing resources.  I even link to relevant sections of both Art of Chording and Learn Plover! throughout StudySteno's sections.  Learning steno from a variety of approaches not only reinforces learning, it better serves the needs of learners, and I genuinely hope to provide well-deserved additional exposure to the Open Steno community at large.   Among others, check out:
      • Ted Morin's Art of Chording
      • Learn Plover!
      • Di's TypeyType (I'll soon have all words used in lessons available for use through TypeyType's community lessons)
      • Joshua Gram's StenoJig (a custom fork of StenoJig is used throughout StudySteno.  I'll be pushing our practice code to the main branch soon.)
      • and many more listed and cross-linked throughout StudySteno.
    "But wait, Greygal!  None/most of that isn't how steno is taught! That's not how I learned steno!"
    Yup.  You're right.  I'm not teaching steno exactly the way it's always been taught.  It's not the way you may have learned steno.  Before you knock it, give it a try.  You might be surprised.

    The Long Version:

    Steno is performed with both hands on both sides of the keyboard pressing keys at the same time.   Every key not only represents a letter-sound, a phoneme, many keys are also assigned to a brief, that is, an abbreviation for a common word and/or phrase.  Phrases are briefs that contain more than one word.  Since steno keyboards are chorded, multiple keys can be pressed at the same time - a stroke - to not only represent letter-sounds, briefs and phrases, but also punctuation, command/function keys, to operate Plover, and lots more.  

    When learning a new keyboard layout, whether it is QWERTY, Dvorak, Colman or a steno keyboard layout (and steno has a variety of layouts), the usual and customary way to learn the keyboard is one key at a time.  On a typical QWERTY style keyboard, that's 61 keys one must learn in order to type all the letters, numbers, most common punctuation, command keys such as tab, shift, enter, control, and alt.  Additionally, depending on the keyboard, you may have to learn the location and use of function keys (F1-F12), the arrow keys, page up/down/home/end, insert/delete keys, plus the 10-key number pad (which may or may also be used for arrow keys and/or page up/down etcetera keys).  All told, you're looking at up to 104 keys to learn the location and use of.  That is a lot of memorization!

    The traditional Ward Ireland style steno keyboard (which is the steno keyboard most widely used in the United States, Canada, and many other parts of the world) has only 23 keys to learn.  Sounds so much simpler, doesn't it?  In fact, it IS simpler to learn the primary 23 keys; memorizing the location of those 23 keys may take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

    Since steno is written from left to right, entire syllables, word parts or whole words are written at once in a single stroke.  Because of this, we need to be able to write most consonants on both sides of the keyboard.  That means we have to learn where each of those consonants is located on both sides of the keyboard, whether they are stroked by pressing just one key, two keys or more.  That more or less doubles the number of key-key combinations we need to learn to cover the 21 consonants of the English language for a total of 36 single and multi key combinations to cover the 22 consonants, plus 4 vowel keys (not including key combinations for long vowel sounds).  That's still a lot less than memorizing the location of 104 keys.

    Most often, the consonants of the steno keyboard are taught more or less in this order:

    1. Learn the 23 primary single keys and the 16 consonants they represent.  This is taught either left side first then right side, or top row then bottom row.
    2. Learn the 8 two-key combinations and the 8 consonants they represent, most of which are also consonants already learned in Step 1.  Sometimes this is taught left side first then right side, sometimes not.
    3. Learn the 7 three or more key combinations and the consonants they represent, most of which are consonants learned in Steps 1 and 2.

    The consonants C, H, Q, W, and Y exist on just one side of the keyboard, leaving 17 consonants that one must learn twice, taught first one key at a time then one multi-key combination at a time.  Plus, of course, the four vowels keys, but those are straightforward for most to learn.  We're focusing on consonants here.  That's all before we start getting into the nuts and bolts of writing digraphs, diphthongs, long vowels, compound clusters, and more.

    Does that sound convoluted to you?

    If it does, it's because it IS convoluted and it begs the question, why don't we learn all locations of a letter-sound at the same time?

    Two years of research, debate, brainstorming, testing out on friends and neighbors, picking the brains of every educational professional I know (and as a Board member of the National Tutoring Association, I know a lot of educational professionals) later, the only answers I could come up with are variations of "steno is hard to learn, we want to keep it simple at first so people don't get intimidated/scared off" and "it's difficult enough to learn how to press one key at a time, expecting people to learn to press two keys at a time before they know the primary single keys is too much."

    Sure sounds logical, doesn't it?  Let's teach all the single key consonants first then teach all the two key consonants then all the three or more key combinations while the steno learner is shaking their head going wait a minute, I thought I already learned the F key, what do you mean I gotta learn it again oh wait, that's right, because 17 consonants are written on both sides of the keyboard and they wonder why court reporting schools have 60-80% drop out rates in the first year.

    The teaching of the steno keyboard has been simplified to the point it's become far overly complex to learn the keyboard.

    Anyone learning steno must learn the location of 17 consonants twice, the location of 5 consonants once, plus also learn how to press more than one key at a time anyways.  Why drag it out?  Why not teach each of those 17 consonants only once, at the same time.  

    And let's not forget, most people interested in learning steno already know how to press a single key at a time!  We're not here to learn how to type, we already know how to type.  Steno should not be taught like typing.

    From all that, StudySteno's approach to teaching the steno keyboard was born.  Of course, I couldn't leave it at just learning both locations of those 17 consonants at the same time.  Why not also teach all the briefs, command key strokes and punctuation mark strokes that each of those keys are used for at the same time?  Briefing, punctuation, command key strokes and more all have to be learned eventually.  Why not teach a small subset of each of these aspects of steno that are related to each of the keys taught at the same time?

    Mocking up sample lessons of this approach using several keys along with sample lessons of the "traditional" way of teaching the steno keyboard, then poking my ever-patient friends and neighbors yet again for help, I tested it out.  Admittedly, this first test was a very small sample - ten people total, five playing with one method, five with the other - but the differences were remarkable.  

    • All five people using the "traditional" sample lesson learned the location of five different single-key letters individually (S-, K-, R-, -P, -T plus four vowel keys) in the sample lesson "with confidence" in 3 days.  No briefs, command key strokes or punctuation was included in the lesson.
      • Three of them said it was "too easy" to learn.
    • All five people using the "blended" sample lesson learned the location of three letters on both sides of the keyboard, (S-S, R-R, P-P plus four vowel keys), associated briefs, punctuation and command keys plus the four vowel keys "with confidence"  in 4 days.
      • Three said "this is making my brain hurt" but also expressed that they liked the way that felt.
    • One month later, all five people using the "traditional" lesson plan could not recall the location of any of the five consonant keys.  Three remembered all four vowel keys, one remembered two vowel keys.  Four of them relearned them in two days, one said she was too busy right and regretfully had to drop out for now.
      • By the way, both lessons used my Adorable Onions Explode Unicorns mnemonic device to learn and remember the four vowel keys.
    • All five people using the "blended" lesson remembered the location of ALL three letters on both sides of the keyboard, three people remembered all associated briefs, one remembered all but one associated brief, and all five remembered the R-R stroke for return (the only command key taught in the sample lesson).  They all forgot the punctuation taught but once reminded, remembered it again.
      • Of note, four of the five people using the "blended" lesson have been not-very-gently nagging me about when they can learn more steno!  Only one of the five people using the "traditional" lesson has expressed a strong interest in learning more 

    The "traditional" lesson was faster to learn but retention at 30 days was poor.  Student engagement was self-reported as low to moderate by four and one self-reported as high.

    The "blended" lesson took about 25% longer to learn "with confidence" (self-reported) but retention at 30 days was outstanding.  Student engagement was self-reported as moderate by one, high by one, and very high by three.

    I reiterate, this was a very small sample but it aligned remarkably well with the research I'd already done in regards to chunking, desirable difficulty, separate and connected competencies, differentiated learning, scaffolding and a bunch of research on piano education.  I was not surprised at all that those who learned that the R- and -R keys are also the briefs for "are" and R-R is the stroke for the return key remembered it well.  The biggest surprise to me was that all five of the "blended" forgot the stroke for the period punctuation mark.  As this stroke only included one of the three consonants taught (P-P in TP-PL stroke), I shouldn't have been surprised.

    Much comparison and analysis of the predominant steno theories of Phoenix and StenEd was done, too.  It's well reported elsewhere that students using Phoenix gained fluency, accuracy and confidence in steno writing much faster than StenEd students, but "graduation" took longer (often much longer) for Phoenix students than StenEd students.  It should be noted that ALL court reporting programs base graduation upon reaching a speed of 225wpm (the requirement for NCRA certification).

    The difference in how long it took students to reach graduation speeds of 225wpm is usually explained (perhaps oversimplified) as Phoenix is "stroke intensive" and StenEd is "brief intensive".  While there is truth in that, a deep comparison the textbooks in both theories shows one other major difference:  Phoenix delves into the whys of steno right from the beginning and thoroughly explains (even overexplains) theory concepts throughout.  StenEd spends more time initially explaining the hows of steno and focuses on learning the primary single-key letters right from the beginning.  

    Both approaches are valid.  There is nothing "wrong" with focusing on the theory or the keyboard first.  And to be fair, most schools teaching Phoenix have evolved from the core Phoenix principle of writing nearly exclusively phonetically to include briefing longer words and developing one's own briefs in their dictionary far more than used to be done in Phoenix schools.  Calling Phoenix theory "stroke intensive" is simply not entirely accurate or fair.

    IMHO (and the opinion of people way smarter than me), the "problem" is the overemphasis on achieving 225wpm as the singular metric for graduation, for achievement or failure.  If the only way to "win" is 225wpm and anything less than that is failure, why bother?  To be fair, over the last few years, NCRA has implemented and expanded their certifications so one can gain certifications beginning at the 160wpm level, with further certifications available over time as one increases their experience, fluency and speed, but all the schools still require 225wpm to graduate.  All of them.

    Reaching 160wpm in steno is a MASSIVE achievement.  NCRA's recognition of this through their certification is a major step in the right direction.

    Ultimately, I settled on a hybrid approach.  Teach theory while learning the keyboard, implement competencies and progress tracking on both theory concepts and keyboard usage, weight accuracy higher than speed while tracking progress in both, and let learners define what is "graduation" for themselves. 

    More brainstorming, research, imposing on neighbors and friends to test out various lesson plan ideas, layouts, activities, tearing up the curriculum plan completely and redrawing it up from scratch again six (!!) times, StudySteno is now live.

    I genuinely hope your steno journey is as fulfilling for you as it has been for me to build this for you! ♥

    Greygal

    Last modified: Thursday, 21 December 2023, 2:01 AM