Txting mks u clvr, according to research that says children should be encouraged to send more text messages because they can improve literacy. Professor David Crystal believes that sending frequent texts helps children’s reading and writing because of the imaginative abbreviations needed.
The finding is in stark contrast to fears that texting’s free forms and truncated words herald the abandonment of traditional grammar. “People have always used abbreviations,” said Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. “They do not actually use that many in texts but when they do they are using them in new, playful and imaginative ways that benefit literacy.”...