Group items tagged

Health literacy is basic reading and numerical skills that allow a person to function in the health care environment. Even though most adults read at an eighth-grade level, and 20 percent of the population reads at or below a fifth-grade level, most health care materials are written at a 10th-grade level. Older patients are particularly affected because their reading and comprehension abilities are influenced by their cognition and their vision and hearing status. Inadequate health literacy can result in difficulty accessing health care, following instructions from a physician, and taking medication properly. Patients with inadequate health literacy are more likely to be hospitalized than patients with adequate skills. Patients understand medical information better when spoken to slowly, simple words are used, and a restricted amount of information is presented. For optimal comprehension and compliance, patient education material should be written at a sixth-grade or lower reading level, preferably including pictures and illustrations. All patients prefer reading medical information written in clear and concise language. Physicians should be alert to this problem because most patients are unwilling to admit that they have literacy problems. (Am Fam Physician 2005;72:463-8. Copyright© 2005 American Academy of Family Physicians.)

A study shows that a parents literacy affects their involvement in their child's school. The parents that have a high literacy level are twice as like to be invovled than parents with a lower literacy level. This article really shows the affects parents have on their kid's education.

Expansion of the internet and market innovation have lead to national economies and the deregulation of banking with a changing economy. In an ever changing economy like the United States individuals must constantly keep updated and improve their level of financial literacy, be aware of changes in personal finances and demography and obtain current knowledge of mortgage lending practices. Financial literacy programs such as first time homebuyer programs, basic financial literacy programs, and savings initiatives have been established through private and public funding to increase the financial literacy of the public. The effectiveness of some of these programs has not been concluded, however, individuals have stated that after completing the programs they felt much more confident in making investments.

In 2007, the Oklahoma Legistalure passed a law called "The Passport to Financial Literacy Act" that requires students, beginning in the 7th grade, to demonstarate "financial proficiency in 14 areas" to acheive a high school diploma. Other schools with the help of the National Endowment Fund for Financial Education have incorporated programs to increase the levels of financial literacy among students. Critics of this program state that these prgrams are not helping the overall financial literacy levels of high school students upon completion. It is not plausable to state that these financial programs are useless, because these programs need to work in correcpendence of parents teaching their children good financial habits within their own homes.

There are ways for students to gain financial literacy and this article is mentions plans for student programs to help do this. The article talks about how some finance classes don't help a students understanding of finances, and mentions to have financial literacy it might have to begin in a person's childhood.

One possibility for those interested in sports to consider is the concept of physical literacy, here called "movement literacy," the idea that just as our minds learn to function at higher levels and acquire new skills, our bodies must do the same. However, between phyical education budgets being cut and increasing importance placed on technology, our understanding of movement literacy is decreasing. This article focuses on students in Kenya, where the most original innovative learning takes place during unstructed playtime. Includes a PDF and several photographs.

This article first discusses what health literacy is, and has some background information. It then discusses how many patients have very low literacy levels. It talks about how health literacy can change how a patient recovers or understands there treatments

This article is about a study/experiment that was done with a group of adults that had visited a health clinic. The tested the performance of new vital signs, and if people were able to read them. This tested there literacy levels, and they had other ways of testing there literacy levels.

Using a nationally representative sample of 13,609 kindergarten children in 2,690 classrooms and 788 schools from the base year of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999, along with three-level hierarchical linear models, this study investigates the impact of early literacy instruction on kindergarten children's learning, as measured by direct cognitive test scores, indirect teacher ratings of children's achievement in language and literacy, and indirect teacher ratings of children's approaches to learning. Two composite measures of phonics and integrated language arts are constructed from teachers' reports of their instructional practices. Findings show that classroom mean outcomes were significantly higher when classroom teachers reported using both integrated language arts and phonics more often. However, children with low initial performance benefited less from integrated language arts instruction, as measured by direct measures of achievement; such differential effects of instruction were not observed for teacher ratings of children's achievement and learning style. Policy implications of the findings are discussed. (Abstract taken from JSTOR.)

This article discusses how the doctors and patients relationship is. It talks about how different patients have different literacy levels that the doctor should understand. many patients feel as though they are not able to understand what there doctors are trying to prevail to them.

discuss the serious effects of low financial literacy for today's workers and retirees. Financial statistics are given that show deficient financial literacy levels in many demographics. The article is a great source of statistical information that will support claims in other articles as well.

This article is about how to develp fluent readers. You need to teach how to read and write very early on. In order to do this the right way, a teacher should use Eli. Eli stands for Early Literacy Initiative. In the program you teach the early childhood level skills to preschoolers. You teach them early on because they can improve thier skills are they grow older.

This article is about what is okay for early childhood students to learn. It talks about what thier mental levels are understand and comprehend. It is set in a preschool classroom. It also talks about how a setting can affect the way a child learns. Literacy should be introduced in a playful way not a academic way.

This is a study that tested the mental health literacy of internet users. They measured different levels of depression through these test. They learned that if they intervene with these mental health disorders earlier, than they are easily fixed/switched by different means.

This article discusses the importance of relaying information from doctors to patients. It states how important it is for the patients to actually understand the information they are being told. All people have different levels of literacy that doctors need to be made aware of.The article stressed the importance of doctors being clear and precise to there patients and not using 'doctor lingo'.

This is an article from International Conference on Supercomputing in the Proceedings of the 19th annual international conference on Supercomputing. The article provides an in depth analysis of a particular technique in monitoring performance in real-time of hardware performance counters that then further analysis of bottlenecks in the microarchitecture and the software that meets hardware at a high-level abstraction layer. This real-time analysis can improve the optimization of existing software systems and lead to more efficient platforms, even applications in parallel computing. I found this article interesting as it is a technique that can improve the level of hardware literacy not only within the hardware engineering community, but it is also a technique that can be used by software developers to study the performance of their code in real life circumstances.

The teaching of such a controversial social issue as evolution in the classroom presents difficulties to instructors, both on personal and professional levels. Griffith and Brem examined fifteen Arizona biology teachers, pulling their experiences from focus groups, interviews, and surveys. The study contains a great deal of anecdotal information dealing with both internal and external influences on instructors' teaching methods. This research investigates a whole new realm of the issue as it pertains to literacy by looking directly at those who control the flow of information and those who influence it. However, the researchers make little conclusive headway, suggesting simply that instructors should be made more comfortable with the topic by having access to better information and resources. Ultimately, the personal experiences are telling of the political climate and social stressors.

This article from ERIC, the Education Resources Information Center, a great free database for anyone doing research related to education, discusses aliteracy among college students. The PDF format is available via the link at the top of the page. It would be beneficial for all students to check out because it is an example of a well-written, college-level research paper.