Maine's pioneering program to give every middle school student a laptop computer is leading to better writing, a survey shows.

Despite creating a language all their own using eMail and text messages, students are still learning standard English, and their writing scores have improved on a standardized test since laptop computers were distributed, the study says.

Moreover, the students’ writing skills improved even when they were using pen and paper, not just a computer keyboard.

“If you concentrate on whether laptops are helping kids achieve 21^st-century skills, this demonstrates that it’s happening in writing,” said David Silvernail, director of the Maine Education Policy Research Institute at the University of Southern Maine.

The study, authored by Silvernail and Aaron Gritter, is the first in a series in which educators aim to evaluate Maine’s first-in-the-nation laptop program.

The program, which seeks to eliminate the so-called “digital divide” between wealthy and poor students, kicked off with distribution of about 36,000 computers to each seventh- and eighth-grader in Maine public schools in 2002 and 2003.

The study focused on eighth-graders’ scores on the Maine Educational Assessment to see if the standardized test results backed up the perception of both students and teachers alike that laptops have led to better writing skills.

State Education Commissioner Sue Gendron said the study represents the first concrete evidence that backs up what most educators already believe: that the laptop program, known as the Maine Learning Technology Initiative, is working.