Texting can help kids read and write

Lo ruok? Bin 2 town 2day 2 meet sum m8s wot u up to?

Nufn much, wru? Wot u doin l8tr?

At home, Nufn till the wknd tbh n e way cu 2moro 😉

Need the above translating? Then I guess you’re not ‘down with the kids’. Experts claim that using this abbreviated texting style can actually help the development of reading and writing skills. Research has shown that children who use ‘textism’ will also have less difficulty regarding spelling skills. A bit of a head scratcher really seeing how none of the above text is anything like the English language. The study was carried out on 8-12 year-olds over the space of a year. Older children appeared to use more abbreviations which require more sophisticated literary skills – again hard to believe.

The research was carried out by Dr Clare Wood of Coventry University on behalf of the British Academy “We were surprised to learn that not only was the association strong, but that textism use was actually driving the development of phonological awareness and reading skill in children,”

So what is this Phonological Awareness; ‘Phonological awareness refers to an individual’s awareness of the sound structure, or phonological structure, of a spoken word. It includes the ability to auditorily distinguish units of speech, such as a word’s syllables and a syllable’s individual phonemes.’ – Phew! Thanks Wiki…