effect of text messaging in spelling proficiency
Benefits Of Text Messaging For Children
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By Margarita Nahapetyan
March 7, 2009
It turns out that text messaging positively affects a child's literacy and, in fact may even improve it, according to a new study conducted by a Coventry University in Britain.
The University researchers involved a group of 88 children between the ages of 10 and 12, for their study. Their goal was to figure out what are the effects of text messaging on children's communication skills. All the kids were given 10 different scenarios and were asked to write text messages about them, describing each situation.
The textisms were divided into categories such as shortenings, contractions, symbols, acronyms, and non-conventional spellings, and examined for the use of the language in comparison with the school performance. When the researchers compared later the number of text messages being used, with a different research that focused on the reading ability of children, they discovered that those kids who used more textisms turned out to be much better readers. The follow-up study and its preliminary results revealed that textism rather improved literacy than had a harmful effect.
The alarming warnings in the media are based on selected anecdotes but in fact when analyzing the examples of text speak in essays experts were not able to find many of them, according to the researchers. In opposite, students appeared to completely understand when they were making contractions and taking the shortcuts, that are very common in text conversations. In addition, when asked to write something in a serious way, the kids were able to put those textisms aside. The kids are actually taking the whole language to a new level, even if critics do not agree with it and say that it is not the right one.
Basically, every expression and intonation that are being used during normal conversation, has to be inserted in a text message, however in most cases young people who send SMS-s on a
2
By Margarita Nahapetyan
March 7, 2009
It turns out that text messaging positively affects a child's literacy and, in fact may even improve it, according to a new study conducted by a Coventry University in Britain.
The University researchers involved a group of 88 children between the ages of 10 and 12, for their study. Their goal was to figure out what are the effects of text messaging on children's communication skills. All the kids were given 10 different scenarios and were asked to write text messages about them, describing each situation.
The textisms were divided into categories such as shortenings, contractions, symbols, acronyms, and non-conventional spellings, and examined for the use of the language in comparison with the school performance. When the researchers compared later the number of text messages being used, with a different research that focused on the reading ability of children, they discovered that those kids who used more textisms turned out to be much better readers. The follow-up study and its preliminary results revealed that textism rather improved literacy than had a harmful effect.
The alarming warnings in the media are based on selected anecdotes but in fact when analyzing the examples of text speak in essays experts were not able to find many of them, according to the researchers. In opposite, students appeared to completely understand when they were making contractions and taking the shortcuts, that are very common in text conversations. In addition, when asked to write something in a serious way, the kids were able to put those textisms aside. The kids are actually taking the whole language to a new level, even if critics do not agree with it and say that it is not the right one.
Basically, every expression and intonation that are being used during normal conversation, has to be inserted in a text message, however in most cases young people who send SMS-s on a