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This article by Margaret Mackney discusses literacy of teenagers based on the television series 'Felicity.' By doing this, she is able to evaluate the complexity of literate behaviors. In addition, she talks about the importance of understanding the values on literacy development and the theoretical and practical implications of understanding the literacy of teenagers.

An OhioLINK film from the series "Childhood Development: A Cognitive Approach to Developmental Psychology." Starting right from infancy, this program charts the development of language during childhood. Basic language acquisition, learned from rudimentary and higher-level child/caregiver interactions, is described. Aspects of competence that go beyond the purpose of simple communication are also considered, including the skill of using conversation for establishing and furthering social relationships, the ability to employ language as a part of games, the capacity to understand jokes, and the awareness of what other people know and understand at various stages of maturation. (25 minutes)

The Report discusses how nearly half of all American adults have difficulty understanding and using health information. Many patients do not always understand health information, so they get less preventative health care and use expensive health services such as emergency care more frequently. By incorporating health knowledge into the existing curricula of kindergarten through 12th grades classes, as well as into adult education community programs, confusion in health literacy can be eliminated. The IOM makes valid points and suggestions for ending the confusion with health literacy.

This essay focuses on how video games both highlight our traditional assumptions about reading and writing and suggest alternative paradigms that combine the new and the traditional:Play. Video games reveal how pleasure and desire are inherent to the reading and writing process. This dimension of gaming helps explain why video games can produce resistance in terms of approaches to writing instruction grounded in maintaining the cultural distinction between play and work.Authority. The interactivity of video games complicates questions of who authors and authorizes meaning in a discourse community. Video game players are simultaneously readers and writers whose gaming decisions are inscribed within a certain horizon of possibilities but not predictability. The video game is an inherently dialogic discursive space that problematizes the institutionalized distinction between "reading" and "writing"Return to the visual. The case of video games not only helps restore the understanding of writing as a visual form of communication but also challenges the apparent static quality of the printed text, emphasizing the temporal quality of all communication. In so doing, the study of video games promises to fundamentally rewrite the conceptual binary of process and product in composition pedagogy.

Teachers combine visual literacy with drama in order for students to make personal connections and to easier comprehend literature; this ultimately proved to provide children with a better understanding.

Weiss discusses the scope of the health literacy problem, the barriers faced by patients with low literacy, and methods to foster verbal and written communication in low literacy patients. Low literacy is pervasive in the U.S. and causes an unnecessary financial and health burden. Because of the complicated health literature, most patients have inadequate understanding of what is said, and simple strategies can alleviate low health literacy problems. Weiss makes interesting and provocative points, but much of his observations are based on his medical practice.

The authors discuss the serious consequences of low health literacy for individual health and the added demands it places on the health care system. Problems resulting from low literacy cause increased health complications and increased hospitalization for patients. Because of the inability for patients to understand medical instructions and directives by health professionals, many patients experience more health problems which lead to additional health care expenditures, translating to billions of dollars for the nation. The authors make important points, but much research is based on studies from a single public hospital. However, the facts presented provide valid information.

This document tells of the many reasons to study the Biblical Hebrew language to help understand the use of language in everyday life. This document also states that the origin of language is always important in the study of any documentation.

In this article Soto describes thirteen bilingual children and their own awareness of bilingualism in their lives by sharing conversation with the others. The study is based on 6 girls and 7 boys from Pennsylvania that speak English and Spanish. Soto goes on to speak about how their town's award winning bilingual system was taken away, and the children were very upset when they went to school and could not understand what was going on. The author makes great points and has many sources that lead to many facts in the article. It is a good study within the article that could teach one about the studies that happen within bilingualism.

In this article Pam McCollum discusses two-way bilingual programs and students who study together in two languages. It directly examines how middle school Mexican students that are enrolled in two-way bilingual programs do better in school, and usually use English over their native language of Spanish. The article shows that they analyzed these students very carefully not only in their work, but in informal settings as well. McCollum's article is, at times, a little bit hard to understand, but if read carefully a useful one.

Li explains through this article the importance of parents helping their children when they are part of a language minority. Studies have shown that if children are trying to learn a second language, it is much easier to do so when their parents are using that language as well. This study was done by the author, Xiaoxia Li, on her daughter, Amy who had come to Li from Mainland China when she was twelve knowing little Enlglish. The article describes the study and the details of how Amy started learning English. Li does a very good job in this article by making everything very understandable and it makes a very good resource for parents that are trying to use two languages in the household.

Kozup and Hogarth discuss the necessity of consumer warning labels on financial matters such as credit cards, mortgage, and mutual funds. They successfully make the analogy of indebtedness to obesity, and our financial state, like our health, can be helped by reading the labels on what they are consuming. The authors describe financial literacy partially as an ability to weigh the pros and cons of financial options available to them, as well as familiarity with the macroeconomic conditions of their environment. The authors also talk about third party financial intermediaries, and the role of policy in consumer saving. The authors offer a great variety of solutions to the problem of financial literacy, and the analogies make it very easy for the reader to understand and learn about the responsibility of financial literacy. Also, the rhetorical questioning involves the reader and implores them to form their own opinion.

Washington Commentary states that the lowest percentage of young adults (18-29 years of age) participated in the national elections for 2000. Several reasons influence the decisions of these young adults: parental focus and attitude, below proficient levels of understanding, and comprehension in history, social studies, and civics classes, and lack of practice or experience in political engagement. Although the article is informational, the content does not lead itself to the particular point of interest.

This study examined the roles of sensation seeking and self-efficacy in explaining extreme and high physical risk taking behavior. Study participants were 20 extreme risk takers chosen from participants in skiing, rock climbing, kayaking, and stunt flying. One control group was comprised of 20 high, but not extreme, risk takers from each of these activities, matched to the participants in skill and experience. A second control group consisted of 20 trained athletes involved in moderate risk sports. Percepts of self-efficacy emerged as the principle variable differentiating the groups. A social cognitive explanation for desire for mastery was used to understand what enables risk takers to overcome the potentially inhibiting influences of anxiety, fear, and the recognition of danger. This conclusion is further reinforced by converging results from interviews with the participants.

This article deals with substance use among high school students. This sample is used to foreshadow the future college environment. The study shows that alcohol is the most substance consumed by adolescents. Moreover, it explains that white people tend to be heavier drinker compared to others. It also describes the negative effects drinkers believe alcohol has on their school work, family and peer relationships. Although this study deals with high school students, but the latter will soon constitute the new college generation. Therefore, this article helps us understand the drinking background of college students.

The author states that children instinctively understand music. She believes since both music and reading are im portant that they should be used in combination to teach literacy. Using evidence from the Mozart effect studies, she stress the importance of music in education

Signal and team explore New Zealand and the low-income inhibiters. This study used focus groups to question 158 shoppers. They concluded that many did not have time to read the labels or did not have the understanding to do so. This study was well organized and had useful conclusions. Also its background was informative, and the study itself added that people of New Zealand lack education to read the nutrition labels, it is not just in the US.

David Natharius, in his article The More We Know, the More We See: The Role of Visuality in Media Literacy, he talks about how the role of literacy is vital in understanding the change from literacy to visually. All of which can be seen in television, film, and Internet.

A film on OhioLINK. Communication is at the core of the human experience, even though effective communication takes a lifetime to learn. This program explores how we develop the arts of speech and physical expression to make ourselves understood and to understand others. Visiting a group of 25 three-year-olds, the film observes them learning as many as ten new words a day-some already grasping the first 1,500 components of the 20,000-word vocabulary collected in the average life span. The "nonverbal leakage" or body language that supplements verbal skills is also explored, demonstrating that children with verbal disadvantages can compensate through other techniques. Original BBCW broadcast title: Read My Lips. Part of the BBC series Child of Our Time 2004. (60 minutes)

Dalton discusses the long history of literacy problems in African Americans. It is believed that the need to become literate mainly started during the emancipation era when it was prohibited in many places for slaves to have the knowledge to read and write. Dalton goes on to speak about how certain African Americans were able to be literate, and went on to write exquisite literature. This article is very interesting and a decently easy read and it helps one out to understand not just the literacy of today, but the literacy in African Americans years ago.