The effect of text messaging on 9‐ and 10‐year‐old children's reading, spelling and phonological processing skills

Abstract

This paper reports on an intervention study that considered the impact of text messaging on 9-to 10-year-old children's literacy skills. One hundred and fourteen children who had never owned a mobile phone before were recruited and randomly allocated to either the intervention or control conditions. All children were pre-and post-tested on a range of reading, spelling and phonological awareness measures. Children in the intervention group were given access to a mobile phone (enabled for text messaging only) for weekends and during half-term break for a 10-week period. It was found that there were no significant differences between the two groups of children in terms of their literacy attainment during that period. However, within the mobile phone group, there was evidence that use of text abbreviations was positively related to gains in literacy skills. Moreover, after controlling for individual differences in IQ, and the children's performance at pre-test, textism usage was able to account for a significant amount of variance in post-test spelling scores. These results show that text messaging does not adversely affect the development of literacy skills within this age group, and that the children's use of textisms when text messaging is positively related to improvement in literacy skills, especially spelling.

EXPOSURE TO “TEXTISMS” DOES NOT LOWER SPELLING SCORES FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AGED CHILDREN

“…While exposure to textisms does not have positive impact on children similar to the positive benefits found for adults, such exposure does not have negative impact on spelling ability. Textism usage has also been shown to be positively linked with standard measures of literacy in studies done in the past decade (Wood et al, 2011;Plester et al, 2009;Coe and Oakhill, 2011;Kemp and Bushnell 2011;Kemp, 2010). Plester et al (2009).…”

“…It would also be beneficial to examine the effects of long term exposure to textisms, as this research only presents a snapshot of the effects of textism exposure on spelling. Although a ten-week study found that textism usage was significantly positively related to spelling test scores (Wood et al, 2011), studies concerning long term effects of textism usage have yet to be published.…”

“…Usage of textisms also has been positively linked with literacy in children (Wood et al, 2011;Plester et al, 2008;2009;Coe and Oakhill, 2011;Kemp and Bushnell 2011;Kemp, 2010;Millen, 2003;Coe and Oakhill, 2011;Bushnell et al, 2011). Plester et al (2009) found that the density of textism used in a text message composure exercise positively predicted word reading ability even after controlling for age, short-term memory, vocabulary, phonological awareness and the length of time the participant had owned a cell phone.…”

Nouveaux médias et orthographe. Incompétence ou pluricompétence ?

“…En eff et, on retrouve autant des enquêtes concluant que la CEMO a une infl uence négative sur la compétence orthographique des jeunes (Zahid et Mehmood, 2013 ;Tayebinik et Puteh, 2012 ;Dansieh, 2011 ;Rosen et al , 2010), que des études y voyant au contraire un impact positif (Bernicot et al , 2014 ;Wood et al , 2011b ;Wood et al , 2011a ;Plester et al , 2008 ;Bouillaud et al , 2007), et d'autres enfi n qui n'observent aucune corrélation entre ces deux variables (Aziz et al , 2013 ;Kemp et Bushnell, 2011 ;Asmaak Shafi e et al , 2010 ;Drouin et Davis, 2009 ;Spooren, 2009 ;Volckaert-Legrier et al , 2009). …”

“…Wood et al (2011a) . Bien que la diff érence entre les performances aux tests langagiers des enfants ayant reçu un téléphone portable pour l'enquête et celles du groupe contrôle n'était pas signifi cative, Wood et al (2011a) ont observé une corrélation positive entre la densité de textismes et les compétences en lecture et en écriture des participants à la fi n des 10 semaines de l'enquête.…”