Health Literacy ▬ The Healthy People 2020

Health Literacy: The Healthy People 2020

Health Literacy

Healthy People: October 2020

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) defines health literacy as “the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information needed to make appropriate health decisions.”

Adequate health literacy may include being able to read and comprehend essential health-related materials (e.g., prescription bottles, appointment slips, etc.).

Adequate health literacy may increase a person’s capacity to take responsibility for their health and their family’s health.

However, health literacy is not just the result of individual capacities but also the health-literacy related demands and complexities of the health care system.  For example, individuals with low literacy may not be able to understand prescription labels—but an organization that values health literacy makes it a priority to implement systems and interventions such as visual aids and counseling that increase understanding and thereby advance patient safety.

Low overall literacy may impact health literacy; however, the relationship between them is complex.  For example, an individual may have high overall literacy and still have low health literacy.  Low or limited health literacy skills are more prevalent among certain population groups and may be linked to many poor health outcomes

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A number of factors may influence an individual’s health literacy, including living in poverty, education, race/ethnicity, age, and disability. Adults living below the poverty level have lower health literacy than adults living above the poverty level.

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Some of the greatest disparities in health literacy occur among racial and ethnic minority groups from different cultural backgrounds and those who do not speak English as a first language.

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Health literacy challenges may impact older adults more than other age groups. On average, adults age 65 and older have lower health literacy than adults under the age of 65.  READ MORE ➤➤

 

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 15

Reading Level: very difficult to read.

Reader's Age: College graduate

 

Literacy Reports & Statistics

 

Health

Quick Guide to Health Literacy and Older Adults, US Dept of Health & Human Services

2019: Health Literacy in the 50 States, Health IQ (an Insurance Co.)

2018: How Health Literacy Got Started, Helen Osborne

2017: Hidden Cost of Healthcare System Complexity, Accenture

2015: Health Literacy & Patient Engagement, 12th Annual Report, US HHS Sep 2015

2011: Health Literacy Interventions Outcomes: Updated Systematic Rvw, AHRQ

2010: Health Literacy, NNLM

2010: Health Literacy: Accurate Accessible Actionable Health Info. for All, CDC

2009: Reaching America’s Health Potential Among Adults, RWJ Foundation

2009: Low Health Literacy, NAAL 2003

2004: Literacy and Health in America, ETS

Using Scavenger Hunts to Get Students Moving in Virtual Learning ▬ Spencer Author

Using Scavenger Hunts to Get Students Moving in Virtual Learning

Scavenger Hunts

Spencer Author: 9.23.2020 by John Spencer 

When we hear the terms “virtual learning” or “remote learning,” it’s easy to imagine students spending eight hours a day in front of a screen. However, as educators, we know that this approach isn’t developmentally appropriate. Children need to move around and interact with their physical world. They need to explore new learning in a way that is hands-on and tactile. This is why we need to craft virtual lessons that take students off-screen and get them moving and making.

Teachers all over the world have been incorporating movement into virtual and online spaces through the use of scavenger hunts. I love how flexible the scavenger hunt structure can be. You might design a simple scavenger hunt around a child’s home or you can design a more complex and elaborate scavenger hunt within the larger community. A scavenger hunt can help a kindergarten discover shapes in their world or find environmental text. However, a high school senior can use a scavenger hunt as an ethnographic study of the structures and systems in one’s community.

The Power of Scavenger Hunts in Distance Learning

A scavenger hunt is pretty much what it sounds like. Teachers give students specific clues or items that they find from their homes or around the larger community. This works well as a video-conference activity, but it can also work as a series of photos that students take and upload to a shared file. Students can work in teams using the breakout room function, or they can work independently. The following are a few scavenger hunt ideas:

Math scavenger hunt: Students find specific items in their homes that connect to core math concepts.

Maker scavenger hunt: Teachers give students a list of item specifications. It might be something soft, something elastic, something round, etc.

Science hunt: When students are learning about natural environments, they might use their phones to take snapshots of different environments in their neighborhood

History hunt: Students can do a walk of their city and find elements of culture or find identifiers of history (such as street names or plaques).

Language Arts scavenger hunt: At a younger age, students might explore environmental texts. They can search for sight words on something like a cereal box.

P.E. scavenger hunt: Students might have a set of challenges where they have to hop to certain items and then do a series of jumping jacks when they find another item.

Music scavenger hunt: Students can do a scavenger hunt where they have to record certain types of music that they hear in the environment.  

3 Ways to Structure Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts can be synchronous or asynchronous. Here’s a quick refresher on what those terms mean and when to use both types of communication tools.

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The Divergent Thinking Scavenger Hunt

A divergent thinking challenge is similar to a design sprint, but it’s built on the idea of creative constraint. With limited resources, students must then use items in new and unusual ways.  Listen to the Podcast 14:47

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 10

Reading Level: fairly difficult to read.

Reader's Age: 14-15 yrs. old

(Ninth to Tenth graders)

Average American Reader Needs You to Write (Even More) Clearly ▬ Digital Gov

The Average American Reader Needs You to Write (Even More) Clearly

Average America Reader

Digital Gov: 5.13.2020 by  Dr. Meredith Larson

When communicating with the public, we must change our assumptions about their ability to understand text. This is especially true when the information keeps changing and is complex, or the stakes are high and people are in crisis.

Over 50% of U.S. adults score below an international benchmark for literacy, with roughly 20% scoring at the very lowest levels. These adults span all demographics and are a part of your audience. Don’t assume they’re not.

You must communicate clearly with your audience. Keep it simple and convenient, and use plain language. Present the most important information you want to convey first. Get feedback from your readers on whether they understand the information you’re trying to convey.

Background

The Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) is an international, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) study used to assess the skills of literacy, numeracy, and digital problem solving in adults between the ages of 16 and 65. After collecting information on how their country’s population is performing, leaders can better target and help their people get access to the resources they need.

Basic Skills Assessed

PIAAC is designed to assess adults in different countries over a broad range of abilities, from simple reading to complex problem-solving skills. A country can check how its population stands in relation to the rest of the participating countries.

PIAAC has four domains:

1. Literacy

“Literacy is understanding, evaluating, using, and engaging with written text to participate in the society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” PIAAC Literacy Domain Page.

2. Numeracy

“The ability to access, use, interpret, and communicate mathematical information and ideas, to engage in and manage mathematical demands of a range of situations in adult life.” PIAAC Numeracy Domain Page.

Literacy and Numeracy has a 5-point scale.

We might consider adults scoring Below Level 1 and Level 1 “at risk”, and Level 2 may be “struggling.”

For Literacy and Numeracy, Level 3 should be sufficient for participation in modern economies.

The Skill Scales: Literacy and Numeracy

Below Level 1: Locate a single piece of information in familiar texts.

Level 1: Read relatively short digital print or mixed texts to locate single text.

Level 2: Make matches between text and information that may require low level paraphrasing and drawing low-level inferences.

Level 3: Identify, interpret, or evaluate one or more pieces of information and often require varying levels of inference.

Level 4: Perform multiple-step operations to integrate, interpret, or synthesize information from complex texts, and may require complex inferences.

Level 5: Integrate information across multiple dense texts; construct syntheses, ideas or points of view; or evaluate evidence based arguments.

3. Digital Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments

“Using digital technology, communication tools, and networks to acquire and evaluate information, communicate with others, and perform practical tasks.” PIAAC Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments Domain Page.

Digital Problem Solving has a 3-point scale.

For Digital Problem Solving, Level 2 should be sufficient for participation in modern economies.

The Skill Scales: Digital Problem Solving

Level 0: One-step or simple problem (“Click on Help tab”).

Level 1: Sorting emails into existing folders.

Level 2: Using website to return item.

Level 3: Navigating multiple pages to find a form, etc.

4. Reading Components

“Focuses on elements of reading that are comparable across the range of languages in the participating countries: reading vocabulary, sentence comprehension, and basic passage comprehension.” PIAAC Reading Components Domain Page.

00:00 Intro

05:00 The Skill Scales: Literacy and Numeracy

08:45 Examples

10:45 United States Statistics

15:20 Demographics for struggling individuals

22:00 Skills predicting information seeking behavior

22:45 What low literacy correlates with

23:40 Adult levels

24:55 How to make things better for people

31:40 Specific things you can try

36:00 resources

READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 11

Reading Level: difficult to read.

Reader's Age: 15-17 yrs. old

(Tenth to Eleventh graders)

This presentation (PDF, 3.6 MB, 51 pages), crafted by Dr. Meredith Larson of the U.S. Department of Education, offers detailed information on literacy skills of U.S. adults, including digital literacy, and the implications for communicating with the public.

Hosted by Plain Language Community of Practice and Digital.gov

Libraries Could Be The Next Hub For Telehealth Services ▬ NBC29

Libraries Could Be The Next Hub For Telehealth Services

NBC29: 10.04.2020 by Elizabeth Holmes

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it harder for many people, especially those who are more at risk for contracting the virus, to get the in-person care they need. However, new research from the University of Virginia shows that getting healthcare in the middle of a pandemic could be as simple as going to a nearby library.

Pam DeGuzman, a professor and researcher at UVA, says libraries could become a new hub for telehealth services.

“Our research has shown that, right now, we can’t find anyone who’s doing this," DeGuzman said.

According to UVA Today, virtual visits from UVA Health alone rose more than 700% between March and May. However, roughly 300,000 people across the commonwealth do not have high speed internet to support using telehealth services from home.

“Particularly, in the era of COVID, that becomes a problem because at one point, clinics started doing almost exclusively for non-urgent cases in telemedicine," DeGuzman explained. “If you didn’t have the ability to get on telemedicine in your home, it would either be very costly for you to do on your phone or you just didn’t do it.”

Many of those who struggle to get internet live in rural areas that require multiple hours of driving to get to their healthcare provider, but the average Virginian lives just 30 minutes away from a library.  WATCH 02:29

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Reading Level: fairly difficult to read.

Reader's Age: 17-18 yrs. old

(Twelfth graders)

Grade Level: 12

Big Data In Education: Literacy ▬ Cepei

@infoCEPEI

Big Data In Education: Literacy

Cepei: 9.25.2020 by Jamiil Touré Ali

Your education attainment does not tell whether or not you are literate. Reading, listening, speaking, and writing is not sufficient either to define that one is literate. Yet data are being collected to gauge the literacy rate in the world. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) literacy could be defined as: “Can [Name] read and write a simple sentence in [Language(s)]” which quote is also part of the questionnaire used for data collection to assess literacy. Being literate or illiterate definitely does not mean belonging to a specific community of language-speakers or being able to speak a particular language. What does it mean then to be literate? And how could big data in education contribute to literacy?

Up to date literacy is still one of the most pressing problems on our planet. Recent statistics evaluate literacy rates among youth (15-24) and adults, as positive (UNICEF, 2019). However, the number of illiterate is still alarming with millions of children and youth still out of school and more than half of those in school not meeting minimum proficiency standards in reading and numeracy at the end of 2019 (UN, 2020). And yet, we are living in a digital era of big data.

Big data in Education

Due to the new technologies’ advances, education has been revolutionized tremendously. The last decade has witnessed the usage of big data in education. In particular, big data storage technologies and analytics tools have helped to collect online data which are capable of producing the following insights on the education system for the benefits of both main actors (teachers and students): 

➧ Improved instructions: Learning is not a one size fits all approach and human beings learn differently.

➧ Matching students to programs: With the boom of new technologies we now have enormous data about different university curriculum systems.

➧ Matching students to employment: Like with matching students to study programs, big data analytics solutions help map students’ suitability for employment.

➧ Transparent education financing: If financing one’s education was a problem, nowadays with the data acquired from various university curriculums it’s no big deal that you could have at no cost the amount range to finance your education using for instance an online calculator.

➧ Efficient system administration: An education system includes human resources (teachers and students) and study resources (books, library, furniture, etc.).

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Literacy in the technological era 

While last year’s International Literacy Day (ILD) celebrations focused on Literacy and Multilingualism highlighting the need to preserve the global world in which we are all living, it’s becoming clearer for us that no dialect should be left behind. UNESCO 2005 report on the importance of mother tongue-based schooling for educational quality clearly states that the common belief that bilingualism causes confusion and that the first language must be pushed aside so that the second language can be learned is a myth. Our challenge then becomes to unlock the potential of our education regardless of the language or dialect and reduce the illiteracy rate. This is probably among some of the drives for the ILD 2019 theme on the global inclusion of languages. And the attainment of such goals falls within the scope of research. 

Natural Language Processing (NLP) for big data in education could help research reduce the burden on the literacy aspect of our education. However, NLP’s current state of the art is really biased toward high resource languages such as English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, French, among others. This inequality which is due to the digital language divide, causes the impossibility of digitization in some indigenous languages hence the need to resort to a second language in some countries. As a result, from the approximately seven thousand languages existing on the globe, about thousands are dying (SIL, 2020).  READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 14

Reading Level: difficult to read.

Reader's Age: 21-22 yrs. old

(college level) 

Repeated Reading with Goal Setting for Reading Fluency @ Iowa Reading Research

@IAReading

Repeated Reading with Goal Setting for Reading Fluency

Iowa Reading Research: 2.05.2019 by Leah Zimmermann, M.Ed. Research Coordinator, Iowa Reading Research Center & Deborah K. Reed, Ph.D. Director, Iowa Reading Research Center

Reading fluency, the ability to read at an appropriate rate and with accuracy and proper expression, is essential to reading comprehension. When students read fluently, they can devote their limited cognitive resources to making meaning from text, rather than recognizing individual words. Therefore, it is important for teachers to implement research-based reading fluency instruction to improve students’ skills.

Reading fluency instruction can take many forms, but it often involves having students read orally so teachers can hear how students are processing the text. Repeated Reading is one type of reading fluency instruction that has evidence of effectiveness at improving the oral reading fluency of elementary students and secondary students. Moreover, students with learning disabilities and those with emotional and behavioral disorders have also benefited from this type of instruction. This is important because these populations are more likely to struggle with reading fluency than their typical peers.

During Repeated Reading, students orally read a single passage multiple times in order to reach a certain accuracy rate or criterion, or to complete a prescribed number of readings. For example, students might be instructed to repeatedly read a passage until reaching 130 words correct per minute (WCPM). Another teacher might instruct students to complete three readings of the passage. When students repeatedly read the same text, they practice actively processing print, which may improve their ability to read automatically, with little effort spent on word recognition. In addition, students receive multiple exposures to new words and practice reading those new words in different types of sentences and paragraphs.

Key Components of Repeated Reading Instruction

Researchers have identified several key components of Repeated Reading instruction.

The first is error correction, in which students receive feedback on words mispronounced during oral reading and practice the correct pronunciations. Error correction benefits oral reading fluency by helping students rehearse and refine pronunciations, which may improve the ability to recognize the practiced words in new texts.

A second beneficial component of repeated reading is peer mediation, in which students work together in pairs or small groups to complete instructional assignments. In Repeated Reading, students read together and serve as more immediate sources of error correction than when a single teacher provides feedback to individual students. When students work with their peers, they are more engaged in fluency practice activities and report increased satisfaction with the assignments. 

Finally, student goal setting is a Repeated Reading component that is associated with immediate gains in reading rate and accuracy, as well as sustained improvement over time. Goal setting may help students self-monitor their reading and identify useful strategies that benefit their reading performance. During reading fluency practice, goal setting typically involves students quantifying a goal, such as “I will read 120 WCPM on my third reading of the passage.”

Although goal setting is important, it should be based on accurate information and realistic expectations. In recent research, some students responsible for serving as fluency coaches to their peers consistently recorded inaccurate reading rate and accuracy data. Given that even trained adults struggle to identify student errors on fluency assessments, students’ mistakes are unsurprising. In addition, focusing on the number of words read correctly may communicate to students that the speed of their reading is more important than the quality of their reading. Rather than establishing a goal based on questionable reading data or an inappropriate understanding of fluency, we recommend that students be taught to identify positive behaviors and reading strategies on which to focus during reading fluency practice.

Repeated Reading: Introductory Lesson

READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 15

Reading Level: difficult to read.

Reader's Age: College graduate

Knowing Your ABCs Isn’t All ▬ Functional Literacy ▬ Slabucho

Knowing Your ABCs Isn’t All

Slabucho: 2 18 2020 by Anastasia Slabucho

According to the International Literacy Association, 12% of the world’s population is functionally illiterate. On this serious note, let me elaborate: 

While ‘literacy’ in itself is a concept fundamental to achieving an educated, developed society, ‘functional literacy’ is perhaps even more so. The distinction between the two can be summarised by the simple question “You can read the words on the page, but can you process the ideas within them?”. Functional literacy therefore involves not only the simple ability to associate spoken language with its written form, but also a broader definition of skills such as reading comprehension, numerical literacy, ability to interpret graphs, analyse texts’ implications and outcomes, in short: it involves a level of literacy at which an individual can effectively function within society.

The aim of this post is to provide a by-all-means non-exhaustive overview of functional illiteracy’s:

➧ concept-development;

➧ general and personal implications;

➧ associated issues and practical improvement initiatives.

The evolution of the term ‘functional literacy’ began with the need for a better definition of reading proficiency, beyond that of attained educational level in years-of-schooling as units. United Nations first posed the question in 1978, and while many adjacent definitions of functional literacy have been postulated by different organisations and NGO’s, the key distinction between formal and functional (il)literacy comes down to ‘reading of written information’ versus ‘understanding, interpretation, expression’ of that same information, as well as numerical and communication skills. According to the UN, functional literacy involves a continuum of lifelong learning that empowers people to achieve their goals, to expand their knowledge and reach their individual, contextualised potential. Today, quality education is Sustainable Development Goal 4, and improving functional literacy plays an integral part in attaining the Goal’s targets.

“A functionally literate person can engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective function of his or her group and community and also for enabling him or her to continue to use reading, writing and calculation for his or her own and the community’s development.”

     – ‘functional literacy’ as defined by UNESCO’s General Conference from 1978 onwards

As per this definition, the consequences and implications of functional illiteracy are both deeply personal and broadly societal. As with general illiteracy, those with insufficient reading comprehension and numeracy levels may experience an inability to achieve their full personal potential, resulting in subjective feelings of insecurity and an objective limitation in terms of life opportunities. The rise of technology has fuelled an emergence of complex jobs demanding a more and more complete FL skillset, meaning that the future promises a growing employment and inequality gap between the functionally literate and those below the required skill-levels.  READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 20

Reading Level: very difficult to read.

Reader's Age: College graduate

Fluency with Text via National Center on Improving Literacy

4 Steps

Fluency with Text

National Center on Improving Literacy:  2020

This toolkit helps teachers and families understand what fluency is and how to support a child’s development of fluency with text.

You will learn:

What fluency is and why it is important.

How teachers can build fluency with text.

How families can support development of fluency with text.

Fluency

The ability to read words, phrases, sentences, and stories correctly, with enough speed, and expression.

4 Steps to Building Fluency with Text

1. Repeated Readings

Read the same passage several times.

Aim to reduce the time and number of errors with each attempt.

Use this strategy with students individually, with a peer, or in small groups.

2. Goal Setting

Identify the number of correct words to read per minute.

Set a goal to read farther in the passage or make fewer errors.

Define weekly learning targets to monitor progress overtime.

Identify an end of year grade level target for number of words read per minute.

3. Corrective Feedback

Give immediate feedback if student makes an error.

Have the student sound out and repeat the word.

Have the student go back and re-read the sentence.

4. Graphing Performance

Let students see their progress by having them graph their performance.

Have students compare their first read-through to the next read-through.

Have students track their targets and progress overtime.

Toolkit includes:

DEFINITION

VIDEO OVERVIEW

SUPPORTING MATERIALS

FLUENT READER EXAMPLES

SPOTLIGHT ON INSTRUCTION

TEACHER RESOURCES

PARENT RESOURCES

      READ MORE ➤➤

Automatic Readability Checker

Based on 7 readability formulas:

Grade Level: 8

Reading Level: standard / average.

Reader's Age: 12-14 yrs. old

(Seventh and Eighth graders)