Taste of IWR - Lesson 8 - Here - Single Word
Channel: Kurt Zoglmann
Date: 26/11/2022

This innovative course introduces you to IWR (Instant Word Recognition) and can accelerate your learning of ICR (Instant Character Recognition). IWR and ICR are similar. Rather than recognizing the sound patterns of individual characters in ICR, you hear the entire word as a complete sound pattern and instantly identify the word in IWR. (Even if you haven't mastered ICR, you can start this course! Don't be intimidated by the speed. It is entirely doable.)

In this course, you will learn the sound pattern of 25 words. For each word introduced, there are four practice sets of increasing difficulty:

• Introduce New Word
• Single Word Repeated 3x
• Single Word
• Two Words

You only need to listen long enough to get a gist of the new word in the Introduce New Word audio file. Feel free to return to it if you need a refresher on that word. The Single Word Repeated 3x will play each word randomly three times before speaking the answer. The single word will play each word once before speaking the answer. The Two Words audio file will give you two random words in a row with a second of space between them. (The new word is randomly selected 40% of the time to help you focus and learn it.) 

Once you have made it through the 100 lessons and learned the sound pattern of the 25 words, it is time to put your IWR skills together to copy sentences! Lessons 101 through 106 will walk you from copying at 8x Word Spacing to a standard 40wpm! At 8x spacing, we start with a spacing slightly larger than what you were working with in the Two Words practice set. Then we step down to 6x, 4x, 3x, 2x, and finally to standard word spacing.


Advice:
Make the practice active and speak your answer out loud. Also, try and make a guess on the word, even if you aren’t sure. The attempt and instant feedback will increase your learning efficiency.

You may find a strong tendency to want to focus on the characters. Just relax and try and let go. (I know it can be easier said than done.) This tendency may be especially strong in those with a firm grasp of ICR (Instant Character Recognition). It may be helpful to engage in a lightly distracting activity, such as petting your dog or cat or perhaps watching an easy-going YouTube video with the sound off. This problem is analogous to the challenge of learning ICR after first learning to count dits and dahs. It may also take several attempts over a few days to get some initial success. Longer practice sessions are not necessarily better.


The basis for the course:
Below are 25 common words that can be learned at 40 wpm. Why 40wpm? This is fast enough for beginners not to recognize characters and fast enough that even the longest word can be learned as a sound pattern. (ABOUT takes 1.17 seconds to send at 40wpm, while WOULD takes 1.08 seconds to send.) 40wpm is also a middle-of-the-road speed. IWR is easiest between 35 to 50wpm for most people. Beyond 50wpm and the sound pattern tends to sound muddled because Morse code loses its signature tone and takes on more of a pulsating sound.

This course is designed so that students learn to distinguish between two initial words based on their sound patterns. Once you reach 75% correct, move to the next lesson, which adds a new word. Each new lesson adds an additional word, and that new word has a 40% probability of being randomly selected. By moving from lesson to lesson, you expand your vocabulary of word sound patterns.

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There is a comprehensive list of Morse code resources on my Morse code website. Check out the Learn and Practice pages ( https://morsecode.ninja/learn/index.html   and  https://morsecode.ninja/practice/index.html ).

I wish you all the best on your Morse code journey! 73 de AD0WE!