Brent was playing outside with his friends after dinner tonight. When he came inside, he plopped down on the couch next to me and watched me respond to some email. After a few minutes, he said, “Can I talk to one of your friends?” I said, “You mean you want to chat with one of them online? Sure.”

So we opened up Trillian and found Karen was online. Even though I know she’s terribly busy, she was kind enough to chat with Brent for a few minutes. I told him she had been in the military, so he asked a couple of questions about that. She most graciously responded. As I watched their conversation, I noticed Brent using IM language that I didn’t even know he knew. In fact, when he threw “nvm” out there, both Karen and I were stumped. (Turns out it stands for “never mind.”) Then he threw in ppl, kewl, and cya at various points. Astounded (remember, he’s only nine-years old and he hasn’t gotten into IM yet), I asked him where he was learning all of this. Guess where?

Yep – Runescape.

One of the big motivations for Brent learning to read has always been video games. He played Playstation before he could read, and when I used to tell him it was time to shut down, he’d pull up the options screen and ask how to save his game. My response was always, “You tell me. Find the one that says ‘save.’” Runescape has helped him learn to read faster, because the text others type can scroll by pretty quickly.

So now he’s learned to read (certainly faster), learned to type (certainly faster), and now he’s learning IM slang, all thanks to Runescape. Interesting literacy lessons there.

Of course, I wonder what else he’s learning….