An adjusting keyboard for a small, touch screen display for a personal digital assistant provides a system and method for selecting a character for entry when a key of the keyboard is struck off center. The system and method of the adjusting keyboard select the next character for entry from the keyboard based on the occurrence frequency of a predetermined number of previously entered characters and the distance the user has contacted the touch screen keyboard from the center points of proximate keys including the key actually contacted. Contact by the user within 0.2 of the key length from the center point of a key is considered a direct hit, and the character represented by that key is entered. For touch contacts beyond 0.2 of the length of the key from the center point of the key, the method of the present invention selects two adjacent keys and the key actually contacted and determines which of the characters represented by those three proximate keys is the most likely candidate for entry based on occurrence frequency and the distance between the contact point and the center points of each of the proximate keys. Once the character has been selected for entry, the occurrence frequency on that character is incremented in a table in memory to reflect occurrence frequency for that character based on the user's own use. A word prediction algorithm can also be run in the background to enhance the character selection based on occurrence frequency.