I've noticed that, when learning a new keyboard layout, punctuation is very hard to re-learn, even though it's not very common. For instance, E is several times more common than period, yet it's easier to re-learn. And it's not because it's rare: Z is easier to re-learn than period. What is it about punctuation that makes it harder to learn? I would guess it's because it's outside of the words, so it's seperate in a way.
My typing speed record: http://hi-games.net/typing-test/watch?u=493
I would also like to request to add punctuation symbols to the typing lessons (perhaps as a separate level or course). Even though most punctuation keys didn't move away from their qwerty positions, not all colemak users were qwerty touch-typers before, so it's useful for them to practice those as well.
I'm new here btw. This is my third week of Colemak, and I'm doing about 40 wpm now. I had developed my own four-fingered typing technique with qwerty over the years and did 70-80 wpm (but with lousy accuracy). I hope to re-gain that speed with touch-typing + colemak within a few more weeks.
The nice thing about typetrainer4mac is it lets you practice the punctuation and special symbol keys you would like to practice. I can have it select to just add in these, ! ' " > . , ? / : ; and ignore @#$%^&*-=+_ for example. I can focus on less than that or more. They get mixed in with the letters. Unfortunately typetrainer4mac is a Apple only program. So you don't have a Mac and can 40 wpm, I would use Ryan Heise's test program to run through slowly times to work on more common punctuation. That seems to also help.
I don't know that punctuation is really harder to learn than learning other keys that occur relatively infrequently.
I do agree that punctuation feels different from letters. I remember the interesting placement of the comma and stop in the dvorak layout: They felt very good. But at the same time it was a bit of a transition mixing them into the letter block.
I used to hate having the B in its' old QWERTY position. Now I have a symbol key there ( the <> key) and it feels just fine to me there. No idea why that's better for me, really. I don't think it was hard to relearn its' position though - it just feels different from the letters. Luckily, I didn't have to relearn many symbol keys. I find that hard to do, but that goes for many rare letters as well.
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I'm now going to attempt to answer my own question. People say that you learn not by letters but by combinations, and this seems true to me. Punctuation is not involved in any combos, which makes it harder to learn.
My typing speed record: http://hi-games.net/typing-test/watch?u=493
