English 101 - Fall 2010

A study was performed that evaluated the effects of sending text messages and using the Internet right before bedtime on children. The researchers at the Sleep Disorders Center at JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J found that the use of these technologies right before bed can have negative effects on kids' sleeping patterns. These then impact their daytime functioning and psychological health. This lack of sleep results in poor cognitive functioning and disorders such as ADHD. The amount of texting and online use before bed should be limited and monitored by parents.

Harring, Holly, Kara Montgomery, James Hardin. "Perceptions of Body Weight, Weight Management Strategies, and Depressive Symptoms Among US College Students." Journal of American College Health 59.1 (Jul/Aug 2010): 43-50. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 Nov. 2010 The purpose of this study is to determine if American college students have a healthy perception on their body weight. They also studied if a misperception caused increased depression among students.

Huston, Sandra J. "Measuring Financial Literacy." Journal of Consumer Affairs 44.2 (2010): 296-316. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. This article talks about the need for people to better understand their finances and how to avoid a financial crisis. This article gives supporting facts on the number of people who are identified as financially literate and gives percentages. There are also many barriers in trying to move toward a way to measure financial literacy and talks about the importance of finding a way to measure financial literacy.

Pogrebin, Robin."Book Tackles Old Debate: Role of Art in Schools." New York Times. New York Times, 4 Aug. 2007. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. Pogrebin gives both sides in the debate over whether the arts really influence academics. She gets perspective from recent research and mainly the experience of two art teachers and co-authors of a book on the same topic. The article is mainly composed of quotes from the two authors. They explain how important the arts are, and how some people support the arts because it helps build skills in other areas. They support that this could be true but that art should be valued in and of itself, and therefore should always be existent in education.

On this opinion page for The New York Times, Stephan Dubner talks about the effects of having mandatory calorie postings for certain restraunts. He believes that because the calorie content is shown, people bought more food.

Ameny-Dixon, Gloria M. "Why Multicultural Education Is More Important in Higher Education Now than Ever: A Global Perspective." International Journal of Scholarly Academic Intellectual Diversity (2010). National Forum Journals. Web. 20 Nov. 2010. nationaforum.com. This article focused on the integration of cultures and the importance of interconnections among all nations as we face global issues such as human rights, nuclear weapons and terrorism. It is important to educate students especially in the higher level in order to embrace the global perspective of different cultures to remain models of a democratic society. This article also discussed the idea of United States being a "melting-pot" of different backgrounds, ethnic groups and cultures".

Wright, Cheryl, et al. "Windows into Children's Thinking: A Guide to Storytelling and Dramatization." Early Childhood Education Journal 35.4 (2008): 363-369. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. This article talks about how promoting storytelling in the classroom helps promote children's creativity and originality. The teacher should encourage stroytelling acitivities and to prompt the kids to tell their made up story without influencing the content. Teachers should aslo send home copies of their stories so they can tell their story again at home. It is good for the kids to learn at school and then take what they have learned home with them, like with storytelling.

Zawila, Laurie, Cathy-Sue Steib, and Barbara Hoogenboom. "The Female Collegiate Cross-Country Runner: Nutritional Knowledge and Attitudes." Journal of Athletic Training 38.1 (2003): 67-74. Print.

Dunn, Debra, Lori Turner, and George Denny. "Nutrition Knowledge and Attitudes of College Athletes." The Sport Journal 4.10 (2007). Volume 13 Number 4 | The Sport Journal. 2007. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. . This journal entry

Jessri, Mahsa, et al. "Evaluation of Iranian College Athletes' Sport Nutrition Knowledge." International Journal of Sport Nutrition & Exercise Metabolism 20.3 (2010): 257-263. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. This research was conducted to help examine athletes nutritional knowledge. Instead of looking at what the athlete knows, the study examined what athletes failed to know. By recognizing what the athletes at what the athletes do not know nutritional professionals can address the athletes on those topics. They conducted their research by giving Iranian college baseball and football players a 2-part questionnaire on sports nutrition knowledge. The results of the study showed that athletes knew little about nutrition knowledge. The researchers believe that their inadequate knowledge may contribute to poor diet. Overall, this study showed that athletes did not have a well understanding of nutrition.

Kliewer, Christopher, Douglas Biklen and Christi Kasa-Hendrickson. "American Educational Research Journal: Who May Be Literate? Disability and Resistance to the Cultural Denialof Competence." American Educational Research Journal 43.2 (2006): 163-192. JSTOR. Web. 13 Oct. 2010. This article is about how society is in denial about people with disabilities being literate. It tells the story's of multiple people who have disabilities that are still able to be literate, one story in particular is about Helen Keller. It goes on to tell how certain special needs educational institutions do not teach their students to read. One teacher was quoted saying "I don't have to worry about it [teaching reading]. My student's aren't readers and never will. This article provides a defense to why people with disabilities should not be deprived of the right to be literate.

Ingraham L. Cynthia, Jean F. Andrews. "The hands and reading: What deafblind adult readers tell us." The British Journal of the Visually Impairment 28.2 (2010) : 103-138. Electronic Journal Center. Web. 3 November 2010. This article tells the story of three adults who are deaf blind and their approach to reading different types of texts. It provides analysis and interviews with each individual as they reflect on how they learned language and how to read as young children. Many deaf blind people tend to isolate themselves and remain illiterate in their home for most of their lives. However the story of these three individual is different. For them they are readers who enjoy reading for pleasure and have achieved higher levels of education because of their reading skills. These three people all used computer technology, scanners, print enlargers, and JAWS software. These people stress the importance that technology played along their journey to literacy.

Johnson, L. "The braille literacy crisis for children." Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 90.3 (1996): 276. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. Johnson makes clear that in the United States there needs to me more emphasis on teaching Braille to young students. It shows the concerns that parents, teachers, and students have about visually impaired children are no longer learning to read and write Braille. Due to the advances in technology Braille has become obsolete. This article gives the different perspectives of both teachers and parents when it comes to their children learning Braille. Finally Johnson says that he believes that there should be more of an integration of visually impaired children into regular classrooms. He also knows that this will not be easy. Although the students will benefit from being in an integrated class room, they need daily contact with a teacher who specializes in working with visually impaired student.

Mullen, Edward A. "Decreased Braille literacy: A symptom of a system in need of reassessment." Re:View 22.3 (1990): 164. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. One reason for a decrease in Braille reading is the improvement of medical technology. There are more children today that are become visually impaired due to an accident and these children more than likely have multiple disabilities. These children's primary handicap is not listed as a visual one therefore it seems that children with visual impairments may be declining, and with that goes funding for Braille programs. Another reason is technology. It is easier today to convince Americans that technology is a better means for a visually impaired person to communicate than Braille. Also, there is discussion over many people turning to technology to communicate because learning Braille is difficult and time consuming. Finally, this article gives hope that these issues will be more widely recognized in the future.

Boehm, Mike. "Michelle Obama Tells International Audience Why the Arts Matter." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 25 Sep. 2010. Web. 21 Nov. 2010. The article is a report of Michelle Obama's speech on the importance of the arts at an event last September. She supported the cause giving her opinion on how the arts have the ability to impact us all. She specifically addresses young people and the importance of including the arts in their education. The ideas that art encourages individuality,growth and representation of our ideals are central to her speech

Dunn, Debra, Lori W. Turner, and George Denny. "Nutrition Knowledge and Attitudes of College Athletes." Sport Journal 10.4 (2007): 45-52. SPORTDiscus with Full Text. EBSCO. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. This article is about research that studied the nutritional knowledge of college athletes. Despite popular belief that college athletes are well aware of nutrition, this research indicates that the nutritional knowledge of college athletes is minimal. The research was conducted on student athletes at Southern university. The student athletes were tested on of current dietary recommendations, sources of nutrients, healthy food choices, and the relationship between diet and disease processes. The research showed that majority of athletes at Southern university had healthy attitudes about eating behaviors, however had little knowledge.

Steinman, Bernard A., B. J. LeJeune, and B. T. Kimbrough. "Developmental Stages of Reading Processes in Children Who Are Blind and Sighted." Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 100.1 (2006): 36-46. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 19 Nov. 2010. This article puts in contrast the development of blind or sighted children learning print and Braille in relation to Chall's stage model of reading development. Chall's stage model is a model of how one should go about learning Braille. His model is broken up into three stages. The stages are: the pre-reading stage, the middle stage, and the later stage. Then these stages are broken down into six different stages. In stages one and two children can focus on the sounds of the words themselves and stages three- five Braille readers state reading texts that have different difficulty level. This article provides detailed descriptions of all six stages and how these stages relate to a child's development when it comes to print and Braille reading.

Emerson, Robert Wall, M. Cay Holbrook, and Frances Mary D'Andrea. "Acquisition of Literacy Skills by Young Children Who Are Blind: Results from the ABC Braille Study." Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 103.10 (2009): 610-624. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 18 Nov. 2010. The Alphabetic Braille and Contracted Braille Study looked at the reading a writing skills of children studying Braille. Their main objective was to learn about the reading experiences of blind children who learned how to read using alphabetic Braille, or in other words had learned the alphabet first, instead of learning the different symbols for words. It was proven, however, in the study that the earlier a student starting studying Braille the better they were at knowing vocabulary, reading the Braille, and comprehending it. They found no link to whether a student was better in reading due to the fact that they learned the Braille alphabet first or if they learned Braille symbols.

Craig, C.J. "Family support of the emergent literacy of children with visual impairments." Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 90.3 (1996): 194. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 16 Nov. 2010. Family involvement is important when discussing children who are visually impaired. A certain home environment is needed when it comes to teaching visually impaired children. This article tells of how reading out loud, having family outings, and encouraging independent readings can help develop blind children's literacy skills. These help the children to build and better understand stories; as well as learning to "paint pictures in their heads". Finally this article provides some suggestions to parents of children who are visually impaired. Some suggestions include: Encouraging "pretend reading and writing", designating a certain spot in the home just for reading, and learn Braille alongside their children.

Stratton, J.M. "Emergent literacy: A new perspective." Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness 90.3 (1996): 177. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 1 Nov. 2010. This article explains how children learn the concepts of symbols and print through interaction with adults. It then continues to apply this to that of visually impaired children. The article states that children grow in their understanding of the environment through hands on experiences. It is necessary for a visually impaired child to develop hand skills. This is because it is their hands that are used to do the majority of their reading. It is through home and school environment as well as motor developments can help a visually impaired child become more literate.