To be adept at seeking, evaluating, and using information found on the Internet, readers must navigate through Internet text and apply their knowledge of the reading process. The merging of these skills is seen when the Internet reader performs a reading act, such as searching the Internet for information about snowboarding.

Literacy and technology converge when students read on the Internet.

One of the ways in which the internet is used in schools is to support the literacy development of children.

New ideas about teaching and supporting children with their literacy development can be read on articles and research papers that are easily accessible on the internet.

Many websites offer free, printable resources that can be used to support literacy development.

Teenagers may not be reading books, but they are clearly interested in social networking. So the question becomes whether social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube are harming students or helping them.

The National Literacy Trust found that social networking sites and blogs help students to develop more positive attitudes toward writing and to become more confident in their writing abilities.

The study also showed that students who write blogs or maintain a profile on a social networking site tend to be more confident about their writing ability. More than 60 per cent of students who blog and 56 per cent of students who have a profile on a social networking site claim to be “good” or “very good” writers, compared with only 47 per cent of those who don’t use online formats. Having a blog also affects writing behaviour. Students who are active online are significantly more likely to keep a journal or write short stories, letters or song lyrics than those without a social networking presence.

Margaret Atwood, one of Canada's top writers, told a Toronto audience Monday that Twitter and the Internet help literacy.

"Thanks to the rise of the internet and of social media, 'I would say that reading, as such, has increased. And reading and writing skills have probably increased because what all this texting and so forth replaced was the telephone conversation,' she continued. 'People have to actually be able to read and write to use the internet, so it's a great literacy driver if kids are given the tools and the incentive to learn the skills that allow them to access it.' "

The Internet has shortened the feedback loop on writing and has made readers more active participants, says Matt Kirschenbaum, an assistant professor of English at the University of Maryland.

Indeed, despite fears that the Internet would stunt the reading of books, the sale of books has continued to trend upward over the past several years.

Adolescent literacy has emerged in the past decade as a unique focus of literacy development with specific concerns and practices.

Technology can be a tremendous benefit to differentiating instruction and supporting learners' success with literacy tasks in career training.