Dyslexic Kids and Mobile Messaging

We are communicating with each other using text with messaging more now than we ever have before. Not long ago the main means of communication was speaking to one another but today text messaging has come to the fore.

Who doesn’t use today mobile messaging- Facebook messaging, iMessage, Whatsapp, Skype etc. to communicate? We all do and our kids much more than we.

Here are some mobile messaging statistics regarding kids:

– 75% of adolescents aged 12 to 17 have a cell phone.

– Kids between the ages of 13 and 17 send an average of 3364 text messages per month.

– Half of teenagers send 50 text messages or more every day. One third send 100 or more texts a day.

Mobile texting usually adopts a very informal language. Keyboard errors resulting in spelling mistakes, the wish to be concise (type less) even at the expense of correct English and grammar – is very common in mobile texting.

So when our dyslexic kids write text messaging with errors should we encourage them to stop and review their text before sending the message? My answer is that it depends …

Dyslexics Deserve Extra Exam Time – Part 2

A few years back, I wrote a blog No Ifs or Buts – Dyslexics Deserve Extra Exam Time claiming that there is no question about it – dyslexics deserve extra exam time.

As my kids grow, I hear many discussions regarding the fairness and the pros/cons of providing extra exam time.

My view is simple: if a kid needs the extra time to succeed than we as parents must do all we can to enable them this extra time. It is important for a child to grow with the feeling of success, and though grades are not everything they do provide our children a scale to judge their success.

Other parents may claim that this is not fair. That some parents/kids abuse this benefit. But as parents of dyslexic children, this is not our concern. We must make sure that our smart and talented kids will succeed despite their reading and writing difficulties.