GR8 news for worried parents: frequent use of text abbreviations does not harm children鈥檚 literacy 鈥� and may even improve it.
Concerns have been raised that an explosion in the use of 鈥渢extisms鈥� like 鈥淐UL8R鈥� and 鈥渨ot u doin 2nite?鈥� could be damaging children鈥檚 reading and spelling ability. To investigate, Beverly Plester and her colleagues at Coventry University in the UK asked 88 children aged 10 to 12 to write text messages describing 10 different scenarios. When they compared the number of textisms used to a separate study of the children鈥檚 reading ability, they found that those who used more textisms were better readers (British Journal of Developmental Psychology, ).
But do textisms improve literacy, or do better readers use more textisms? The preliminary results of a follow-up study seem to suggest the former, Plester says. She believes that this is because textisms are phonetically based: 鈥淧honological awareness has long been associated with good reading skills.鈥� Exposure to the written word in any form is also linked to improved literacy. 鈥淭hese kids are engaging with more written language and they鈥檙e doing it for fun.鈥�
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