Text Messaging and Literacy, the Evidence

"Well thought out and timely. This is the leading group in the world working on texting and literacy, and they have a strong track record of publications. It would also be the first book, as they say, to deal with the subject at an academic level. The focus on education is important, as this is where most of the anxieties lie. It will be a major step forward in creating a new climate."

• David Crystal

As children are given mobile phones at increasingly younger ages, there is considerable media coverage of claims that mobile phones, and text messaging in particular, are responsible for declining levels of literacy in children and young people. Such claims are often adopted wholesale by teachers and parents, despite the fact that there is an empirical literature which has failed to find a basis to these claims, and to the contrary has found that text messaging is supporting children’s literacy skills.

Written by leading international researchers Text Messaging and Literacy presents an overview and discussion of the academic evidence for and against use of text messaging and mobile phone use to support literate activity and discusses what conclusions we can and should draw about the impact of mobile phones, and their potential role in education.

Areas covered include:-

• The rise of texting and media reactions
• Children’s reading, spelling and texting
• Text messaging of children with language difficulties
• Using mobile phones for literacy development
• Texting and literacy skills in adolescents and adults
• Spelling and grammar in texting and beyond
• The future of texting

In numerous countries the mobile phone and text language as been perceived as ‘polluting’ or linguistically degrading but these views have never been supported by evidence and are often based on false assumptions. In challenging existing assumptions the author’s present the cutting edge of international research, highlighting their own work and numerous longitudinal and intervention studies involving children of all ages, adolescents and adults.

Based on current best evidence this ground breaking book calls for a rethink of what we should be concerned about and why, and explores what educationalists can take away from research in this area, and what texting has told us about the psychology of reading and spelling.

Clare Wood is Professor of Psychology in Education at Coventry University, UK. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Research in Reading and is the Director of the Centre for Applied Research in Psychology.

Nenagh Kemp is Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, University of Tasmania (UTAS), Australia, and is also Associate Editor for the Journal of Research in Reading.

Beverly Plester is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Coventry University, UK.