Texting to Teach Reading and Writing

Purpose: To incorporate text messaging into reading and writing instruction for ESL or general literacy/ABE learners.

Tips for using texting with students:

• Ask students to read a text and then summarize it for you in one to three text messages. Compile the summaries, if working with a group, and ask the students to choose the best summary.
• Send out a word of the day. If you are studying workplace skills, send out words related to those lessons. Ask student s to respond by sending you a definition of the word. 
• Share grammar tips.  Ask students to write back incorporating the grammar in context.
• Ask students to text you their opinions related to a discussion or an article covered in a lesson recently, or ask them to text you and tell you something that they learned in a recent lesson.
• Create a glossary to help “translate” text message abbreviations and acronyms. Sites such as Sharpened Glossary allow users to type in an acronym and find out what it means. Try sending out a message with various abbreviations or acronyms and encourage students to use a site like Sharpened Glossary to decode the meaning.
• Text a sentence with grammatical, vocabulary, or spelling errors (based on the level or class and what they are focused on) and have students send you a text back with the errors corrected.
• Share announcements. If class is canceled due to a blizzard, students may be more likely to respond to a text message than an e-mail or phone call.

Want to learn more about the use of texting in education? Check out this great article from LD Online with instructional suggestions and outlining the research behind using texting in the classroom.