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What is the content and focus of studies on technology and ICT applications in relation to early literacy development? What kinds of evidence do these studies provide about the affordances of technology and ICT for fostering early literacy development?

There is positive evidence of the role of technology in supporting early literacy acquisition for this age group. In a majority of the studies used in the analysis, there was a lack of attention paid to the role of the teacher. The specific study outcomes may be promising but they may also be more difficult to replicate without this information.

First, technologies have affordances and constraints making them more or less useful in different circumstances. The review provided evidence that electronic storybooks can lead to significant early literacy gains. However, there were also other technologies highlighted in this review that were successful in literacy acquisition. More importantly, electronic storybooks impacted literacy skills differently based on the interactivity they afforded and the number of student interactions offered.

Taught with the video lectures, Roshan's students in the 2010-11 school year scored an average of 4.11 on the AP calculus test, compared to the 3.59 average among her students who took the test and were taught in the traditional classroom setting the year before. And a third of the class—a 10 percent increase from the previous year—scored a 5, the highest score a student can achieve on an AP test.

For a public school district, such as the Chicago Public Schools, budget concerns "are always an issue," says Talha Basit, the client computer service manager at CPS. Though there are more than 400,000 students among 675 schools, only about 100,000 computers and 5,000 iPads are available for student use.

A study carried out by Varnhagen et al. looked at IM communications between adolescents and found that ‘spelling ability was not highly correlated with new language use’ (Varnhagen 2010: 729). In some cases, those with better literacy skills used textisms more frequently than those who were poorer in terms of their spelling ability. These findings relate to the idea that ‘children who are comfortable with writing – those with good literacy skills – will be experimental and use textisms more than other children’ (Vosloo 2009: 3).

Text messaging is simply an evolution of technology creating a new form of language, and as long as children and adults are able to distinguish when to use formal and informal English in the correct context, texting will not dumb down literacy

Crystal (2008: 162) also claims “children could not be good at texting if they had not already developed considerable literacy awareness”. Being able to write in text language comes after mastering standard writing.