'txtN is ez f u no h2 rd': the relation between reading ability and text-messaging behaviour

A study was carried out to explore whether or not there is a relationship between children's reading ability and text-messaging behaviour. The aims of this study were to compare good and poor readers on their amount of usage of mobile phones, the frequency and type of text devices they used, and the speed at which they could read messages in 'text' versus those written in formal English. Ten- and 11-year-olds completed three assessments: a questionnaire, two writing tasks and a reading task. The results showed that, overall, poor readers spent more minutes per day using their phones. Despite their less frequent use of phones, the good readers used more textisms in their written text message and were faster at reading all the messages.