How to Use Dictation Speed to Train: The Comfort, Stretch and Overload Method

Why speed control is a training tool

Most steno students practise every passage at one speed: the speed of their target exam. It feels like the right thing to do, but it is one of the slowest ways to improve. If 100 WPM is too fast for you today, you spend the whole passage dropping words and learn very little. If 80 WPM is already comfortable, repeating it only keeps you where you are.

Changing the dictation speed on purpose fixes both problems. You slow down to learn clean outlines, and you speed up to stretch your hand. On Steno Daily every dictation has a speed slider from 50 to 140 WPM, so one passage can be used at several speeds. This guide explains how to use that slider as a proper training method instead of a random setting.

The aim is not to write every passage as fast as possible. The aim is to write cleanly at your exam speed with some room to spare.

The three practice zones

Think of every speed in terms of how it feels for you today, not as a fixed number.

For a student whose exam speed is 80 WPM and who can just manage 80 today, comfort might be 60 to 70, stretch 80 to 90, and overload 100 or more. For a Grade C student aiming at 100, the zones move up by about 20.

Find your zones with one test. Take a passage you haven't written before and play it at your exam speed. If you lose more than a handful of words in a minute, that speed is stretch or overload for you right now. Step down 10 WPM at a time until you reach a speed where you get nearly everything. That is the top of your comfort zone.

The ladder method for one passage

Use one passage at three speeds in the same session. This works because the second and third rounds use words you have just met, so your attention can go to speed rather than to unfamiliar words.

1. Round 1, comfort speed. Write the whole passage. Read your notes back and mark any outline you hesitated on or wrote badly.
2. Fix the outlines. Write each marked outline correctly five to ten times. Check doubtful ones in your shorthand book.
3. Round 2, stretch speed (10 WPM higher). Write the passage again. Notice how much of it now feels easier than it did in round 1.
4. Round 3, overload speed (another 10 to 20 WPM higher). Write only the first two or three minutes. Don't stop when you fall behind; skip and pick up the next phrase you can catch.
5. Transcribe round 2. Type the stretch round in full and check it. This is the round closest to your exam, so it is the one worth marking.

This ladder takes 40 to 50 minutes, and it gives you three kinds of practice from one piece of audio.

Why overload practice helps, and when it hurts

Writing faster than you can manage forces your hand to cut wasted movement: lifting the pen too high, pausing between outlines, writing large. After a few minutes at overload speed, your exam speed often feels a little slower than before.

But overload practice has a cost. When you are badly behind, outlines get rough and you start inventing shapes you would never write at normal speed. If you spend too long there, those rough habits carry over into your normal writing.

Keep it in proportion:

• Use overload for short bursts of two to five minutes, not whole passages.
• Do it after a comfort round, never as your first round of the day.
• Never transcribe an overload round for marking. It will only discourage you.
• If your stretch-speed notes start looking worse, cut back on overload for a week.

Slowing down is not going backwards

Many students feel embarrassed practising at 60 or 70 WPM when the exam is at 80 or 100. But the slower speed is where you build the outline accuracy that the exam actually marks. In the skill test you are judged on your transcription, and your transcription can only be as good as your notes.

Use a slow speed when:

• You are learning a new topic area (legal, budget, parliamentary) with many new words
• You keep mixing up similar outlines and need to write them cleanly
• You are coming back after a break of a week or more
• Your accuracy in the last few transcriptions has dropped

A good rule is that at least a third of your weekly writing should be at comfort speed.

A sample weekly plan

Here is one way to organise a week for a student whose exam speed is 80 WPM. Move every number up by 20 if you are preparing for 100 WPM.

When stretch speed starts to feel like comfort for most of a week, move all your zones up by 10 WPM.

Track your speed honestly

It is easy to fool yourself about speed. Keep a short log with the date, passage, speed, and the number of mistakes in your transcription. Steno Daily saves your results after each attempt, so you can look back at your accuracy over time on the My Results page.

Look for two signs of real progress:

• The same speed gives you fewer mistakes than it did two weeks ago
• You can write at a speed 10 WPM higher with the mistake count you used to get at the lower speed

If neither is happening after three or four weeks, spend more time at comfort speed fixing outlines rather than pushing speed higher.

Common mistakes with speed control

• Always writing at maximum speed. It feels like hard work, but your outlines get worse and transcription suffers.
• Never going above exam speed. You will be at your limit in the exam itself, with no margin for nerves or a fast-speaking dictator.
• Jumping by 30 or 40 WPM at once. Big jumps turn stretch into overload. Move in steps of 10.
• Changing speed in the middle of a passage. Pick a speed for each round and keep it to the end.
• Ignoring transcription. Speed only counts if you can read it back. Always transcribe at least one round a day.

Start today

Pick any passage on the dictations page, find your comfort speed with the test above, and run your first ladder. One passage at three speeds will tell you more about where you stand than three passages at one speed.