Often, among the people the children are carrying on conversations with, there are teachers, social workers, scientists, anc researchers. This causes the children to stretch themselves, and we have watched children search out dictionaries, so that they could keep up their end of the conversation on an even level with the other party. We have had a hard time with gathering long term test data, due to the transitory nature of our population and to the consistency of standardized tests being given. However, we have shown improvement in reading skills in the original group, and I have seen improvement in my own classroom. Alone, MUDs will not necessarily increase literacy skills.
Teachers are a very important part of the equation.
Part of my job as a teacher involved in this program is integrating MUDs into the reading and writing curriculums set by the district. As part of the writing curriculum, my students and I work on the writing of a good description for the objects and rooms created as a part of projects or as a part of personal spaces. To get the children to concentrate on what goes into a quality description, one of the things I do in my classroom is to have the children create a rubric. As an introduction to the lesson, I had good descriptions, mediocre descriptions, and poor descriptions printed out. We read the descriptions and discussed what descriptions were better to read, what descriptions could paint the picture in your mind of what the room or object looked like, and which descriptions didn't really tell you anything.