An Evidencebased Health Literacy Curriculum for Adult Literacy Practitioners: Pilot Information

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An Evidence-based Health Literacy Curriculum for
Adult Literacy Practitioners Pilot Information

• Ryan Hall Lynda Williamson
• Literacy Action, Inc.

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Development

• Grew from 5-year research funded by NICHD, NIFL,
  and OVAE
• Principal Investigator Dr. Susan Levy from
  University of Illinois at Chicago Health Research
  and Policy Center
• Curriculum increased literacy on standardized
  tests of literacy and increased health literacy
  knowledge for 1946 adult learners.

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Goals

• Enhance adults literacy skills
• Teach them ways to navigate the health care
  system
• Teach them ways to achieve better health care for
  themselves and their families

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Overview of Curriculum

• Each lesson centered around a specific health
  topic
• Basic Skills Vocabulary Sections
• Reading Comprehension Section
• Supplemental Activities
• Meant to be used to reinforce reading skills
  (phonemic awareness, word analysis, vocabulary,
  comprehension).

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• 0 0

Dr. Rosalind Davidson, Dr. John R. Kruidenier,
Susan McShane From Assessment to Practice
Research-Based Approaches to Teaching Reading to
Adults National Institute for Literacy archived
webcast, September 28, 2007
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Topics

• Health Professionals
• Emergency Care
• Self-Care Preventive Care
• Physical Activity Good Nutrition
• Making Keeping Appointments
• Talking to Health Professionals

• Medical Tests Follow-up Care Instructions
• Medical History Forms
• Medications (warnings, dosages directions)
• Paying for Health Services

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Basic Skills Vocabulary

• Core and Supplemental Vocabulary
• Graphics for the Core Vocabulary
• Sight Word Lists
• Phonemic Awareness Activities
• Phonics Activities

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Vocabulary

• What is this a picture of?
• What is your experience with x?
• Can you use x in a sentence?

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Core Vocabulary (lesson 6) physical
activity muscles joints control weight lower
stress reduce the risk of disease high blood
pressure nutrition diet energy healthy weight
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Supplemental habit motivate couch potato cold
turkey life-altering health-conscious
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Sight Word Lists
was call to said the what
where have write wrote put walk
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Working with Sight Words
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Unfamiliar Words
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Phonemic Awareness Phonics

• tell if two sounds are the same or different
• isolate identify sounds within a word
• chunk words into beats
• rhyme
• blend, segment, add, delete sounds in words

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Activities

• Acronyms (MRI UTI)
• Hearing Beats
• Cloze Activities

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Cloze Activity
Jim looked g d. He felt g d. Jim felt
strong. He t k care of himself. He almost
never got sick. He had a lot of energ . Jim
tried to eat good f d. He did not each much
junk food. He ate three health meals a day.
After meals he brushed his t th. He used
floss.
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Demo of Alphabetics Lesson
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Reading Comprehension

• Reading Passage
• Cloze Activity
• True-False Comprehension Check
• Beginner Story
• Beginner Cloze Activity
• Beginner Comprehension

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Reading Passage

• The core lesson
• At low levels, best if teacher reads first to
  model phrasing intonation

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Beginner Reading Passages

• Beginner reading passages for students to read
• written at 2-3 Grade Level
• story version easier to visualize than
  non-fiction
• repetition of words and phrases, mostly decodable
  words

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Supplemental Activities

• Writing Activity
• Oral Activity
• Comprehension/Reading Activity
• Vocabulary Activity

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Writing
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Picture Sequence(writing)
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Listening Scenario(oral)
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Paraphrasing(oral)
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Comprehension
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Our Classes
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What the students like

• I learn to pronounce words more.
• ...I know about many cases of health
  problems...I listen to everybody talk, so my
  hearing gets better.
• It is very good. We talk about heart attacks,
  how to eat healthy food, and get check-ups.
• I like to learn about parts of the body.

• I like learning something new about my health
  everyday. How to handle an emergency.

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Student suggestions

• Learn more about the heart and brain. How the
  body functions.
• More about medications.
• Information on diseases.
• I want to learn about cancer.
• cancer, stress, STDs

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Reminders

• Designed to improve adults reading skills and
  knowledge about health care
• NOT a stand-alone program for teaching reading
  components
• Can be adapted to fit program needs
• Available online this fall on NIFL website

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QUESTIONS?