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Educational technology is nudging literacy instruction beyond its oral and print-based tradition to embrace online and electronic texts as well as multimedia. Computers are creating new opportunities for writing and collaborating. The Internet is constructing global bridges for students to communicate, underscoring the need for rock-solid reading and writing skills. By changing the way that information is absorbed, processed, and used, technology is influencing how people read, write, listen, and communicate.

Information Literacy: The ability to access and use information, analyze content, work with ideas, synthesize thought, and communicate results. Digital Literacy: The ability to attain deeper understanding of content by using data-analysis tools and accelerated learning processes enabled by technology. New Literacy: The ability to solve genuine problems amidst a deluge of information and its transfer in the Digital Age. Computer Literacy: The ability to accurately and effectively use computer tools such as word processors, spreadsheets, databases, and presentation and graphic software. Computer-Technology Literacy: The ability to manipulate the hardware that is the understructure of technology systems. Critical Literacy: The ability to look at the meaning and purpose of written texts, visual applications, and spoken words to question the attitudes, values, and beliefs behind them. The goal is development of critical thinking to discern meaning from array of multimedia, visual imagery, and virtual environments, as well as written text. Media Literacy: The ability to communicate competently in all media forms—print and electronic—as well as access, understand, analyze and evaluate the images, words, and sounds that comprise contemporary culture

The best method the government can use to improve literacy rates in America is to advance the system of education and education technology.

People can also make good use of education and education technology to reduce the number of illiterates in America. The internet can be used as a great tool to promote learning since it has such a wide range. Almost everyone has access to the internet and if it is utilized properly, it can spread literacy advocacies like wildfire. This can be done quite easily by using the popularity of social networking websites to speed up the process of spreading information. If enough people are made aware of the literacy problems in America then it will make the task of improving literacy rates easily achievable.

Education and Education technology can also be improved by using state of the art teaching materials. Software programs can be created especially for the goal of making academic lessons easier. Since these programs can be given game like properties, they will be much more appealing and they can make learning a fun process. There are some schools that use high tech equipment to aid them in teaching. Researching whether the usage of such equipment has increased the efficiency of schools can contribute a lot to anti-illiteracy efforts. If it is found that high tech educational equipment's are effective then the Department of Education can provide these equipment to public schools; if the results show the contrary then another plan must be devised.

Texting and “text speak” can be used to help build foundational reading skills (link is external) such as word recognition and phonological awareness. You can also use texting to generate discussions of formal and informal language (link is external) and writing for different tasks, audiences, and purposes (link is external), which are necessary skills for meeting college and career readiness standards in reading (link is external), writing (link is external), language (link is external), and speaking and listening (link is external). Although it may not seem like it, texting is writing, and students who text frequently are engaging in frequent writing (link is external). Therefore, it makes sense to harness all of that energy and use it as a way to help your students build their writing skills

Texting and “text speak” can be used to help build foundational reading skills (link is external) such as word recognition and phonological awareness.

The Internet has become so pervasive that to be truly literate in 2006 demands some degree of technological fluency or at least familiarity. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 73% of American adults had used the Internet or e-mail as of March 2006. For the first time, the National Association of Adult Literacy—the most wide-ranging U.S. study of literacy—will test computer literacy in its 2008 survey that measures overall literacy. With such a large proportion of reading and writing taking place on the Internet, literacy has changed from a solitary pursuit into a collective one.

Sending text messages - from the slang "wot" and "wanna", to the short cut "CU L8R"- may actually be improving, not damaging, young children's spelling skills, new research shows

Most text abbreviations were phonetically based, such as "wot" for "what" and combination texts, such as "C U L8r". Many children also used a form of youth code, a casual form of language such as "dat fing", "gonna" or "wanna".

Surprisingly, the children who were better at spelling and writing used the most "textisms"

Online literacy programs are an excellent addition to reading strategies in schools and volunteer centers. Helping someone learn to read can be a very rewarding experience on a personal level but volunteering to help organize literacy programs is also an important contribution to the local community and greater society. On International Literacy Day, September 8, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) noted that globally there are 774 million illiterate adults and 75 million illiterate children. Illiteracy continues to be an elusive global problem, but in the age of the internet, the battle against illiteracy can be won.