According to the National Literacy Trust, youngsters who text, use social networking sites or who blog, are more confident about their literary skills than those who don’t.
A survey of 3000 children aged between 9 and 16 revealed that nearly a quarter of them had their own blog, 82 percent used text and 73 percent regularly chatted online.
Here’s the interesting bit. Less than half of the kids who didn’t blog or use social networking sites rated their own writing skills as “good” or “very good” compared to 61 percent of bloggers and 56 percent of those who regularly used social networking sites.
“Our research suggests a strong correlation between kids using technology and wider patterns of reading and writing,” Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, told BBC News.
“Engagement with online technology drives their enthusiasm for writing short stories, letters, song lyrics or diaries.”
Ok so it maybe encourages them to write more but that doesn’t necessarily make them more literate. Or does it?
Take the limited character amount on mobile phone texts as an example, or on the micro blogging site Twitter, short cuts such as “u” for “you” and “l8tr” for “later” or other popular abbreviations are necessary. We all know what they mean.
There have been various reports in the media from time to time that this form of textspeak is having a negative impact on literary skills in general.
Mr Douglas, however, doesn’t seem to think so.
“Does it damage literacy? Our research results are conclusive – the more forms of communications children use the stronger their core literary skills” he said.
John Coe, The General Secretary of the National Association for Primary Education would appear to agree.
“Young people aged nine and upwards are texting like crazy – inside and outside the classroom,” he said.
“It is a form of reading and writing. It might not be conventional but they are communicating, so there is a general gain.”
He also added that the association was looking at ways that kids’ passion for texting could be incorporated into teaching methods. Now that would be an interesting exercise.
Personally I think change is a natural part of progress and if it means that textspeak becomes the norm then so what.
I mean if we look at how language was written only a century ago it bears little resemblance to what we see now. Change is inevitable, we adapt, we learn. LOL!
