Texting makes kids better spellers... what?

Perhaps all is not lost after all. A new infographic from OnlineSchools.com reports that today’s teenagers who text may actually have better reading, writing and spelling skills. Huh? Catching typos and grammatical errors is quite the pastime for me these days. I shout them out during the news to my husband’s chagrin.

“They spelled Michael wrong.”

“How do you know?” he’ll ask, “Maybe that’s how HE spells it?”

“I doubt he spells Michael with a G.” I reply, and then lament the fact that today’s youth (all the kids and teens in my own family included!) will grow up without learning the fundamentals of language.

Which is why I was caught off-guard by this infographic. How could these typo-making textmaniacs grow up to have BETTER reading, writing and spelling skills?

According to OnlineSchools.com, creating and decoding text abbreviations, like BRB and TTYL, requires strong phonetic and alphabetic awareness. Wow. All hope may not be lost.

Further stats show, however, that the heavier the media consumption of the teen, the lower their grades, and the higher their rate of sadness and delinquency. Take a peek below.