English for Staying Healthy

Knowledge is power, but it is also health. Literacy skills are the strongest predictor of an individual's health status - more than age, income, education level, employment status or racial or ethnic group. At Literacy Network we teach a class in health literacy for English as a Second Language learners. The textbook for the course is Staying Healthy - An English Learner’s Guide to Health Care and Healthy Living. 

Produced by the Florida Literacy Coalition and written by Sabrina Kurtz-Rossi, Martha A. Lane, Julie McKinney, Jordana Frost, and Gregory Smith, the book gives great information in plain but lively English. Using the Gunning Fog readability index I found that the material hovered around a sixth-grade reading level.

The book is filled with practical information on staying healthy and dealing with the American Medical system. Here is a screen capture to give you a sense of the language and content: 

The first chapter largely deals with the American health care system, which is likely to be very different from a learner's home country. Chapter 2, "Your Doctor," teaches learners how to communicate with medical professionals. Some of the advice is amazingly helpful, for instance, "Practice describing your symptoms in English. Practice with a friend or family member. If you have a picture dictionary or bilingual phrase book, take it with you." Following chapters cover nutrition, chronic illness and staying healthy.

Tutors and learners can download the entire 104-page book as a PDF for free from Florida Literacy Coalition's website. At the end of the PDF you may find a teacher's resource guide with practical tips for how to teach the vocabulary and concepts. Many of the guide's sections could make good lesson plans all by themselves.If that much data is unwieldy for your computer you could download it one chapter at a time by clicking here. If you have an interest in buying a hard copy for yourself or your learner you can buy one from the coalition for $5.00 plus another $5 for shipping. For any purchase up to five books the shipping cost would remain the same. 

Readin', Writin' and Recipes

When you and your learner want to read something practical, recipes come up as something easy to get your mind around. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created a website (click here) to help home cooks use the materials they want to use in order to make meals that are nutritious, affordable and, of course, tasty.
You can search for one ingredient at a time-onions, lentils, tuna fish-whatever you have on hand or want to work with. The screen capture at the right shows a recipe that came up when I searched on the term mustard (always in the last thing in an empty fridge). Also interesting: the recipe gives a rundown of nutritional information and cost per serving.
So, for the learner who needs to practice reading, learn vocabulary about cooking and/or make nutritious food on a budget, this is a great resource. According to Kelley Burd-Huss, Literacy Network volunteer, the site is terribly underutilized. It also recommends only whole, simple ingredients—nothing terribly processed. A lot of the stuff you can get in the WIC program is in there." After you have tried one of the recipes you can even rate it from one to five stars and - teachable moment! - write a review together with your learner.

Health Literacy

This week I asked the Regional Literacy Consultants of Wisconsin Literacy a question, namely, what resources are out there for tutors and teachers to use with learners who are 1) interested in health literacy and 2) would like some direction as to how to speak to their health care providers.

Margarete Cook, Northwest Regional Consultant, wrote back, saying, “There is a wonderful free curriculum available for ESL online called Project Shine. It is located at http://www.projectshine.org/healthliteracy/healthlitunits.htm. This site has a downloadable Word document with helpful pictures and easy-language instruction.”
Below is an excerpt I cut and pasted from that document:

Before you read: Look at the pictures (A-D) and answer the questions.

Shapiro, N. and Adelson-Goldstein, J. (1998). The Oxford Picture Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 85.

1. Who do you see in these pictures?
2. Where are they?
3. Who is the man calling? Why?

Margarete continues, “Another resource for ESL is called Picture Stories for Adult ESL Health Literacy. It is located at this link. I would think that both of these would help the learner with terminology and understanding to communicate with their provider.” And finally, to see a site that has dialogues, readings and puzzles for beginning students, visit http://literacynet.org/vtd/.

From Marsha Connet, the Good Consultant of the Northwest:

“One of the best tools out there is the Ask Me 3 program from Clear Health Communication. It teaches the student three basic questions to ask their health care provider at each visit.

I've taught it to student-tutor pairs, individuals with ESL and other communication issues, the elderly and the general public and it's always well received."

From: healthliteracy-bounces@nifl.gov

Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 1:19 PM

Lorraine,

Here are some ideas - things the patient can say - and sources:

• "Can you show me any pictures of this?" (Ref. Houts, Doak, Doak, Loscalzo, "Using pictures in health education: Patient Ed and Counseling, May, 2006.) Pictures help greatly in patient understanding and recall.
• "In this brochure you've given me, could you show me (or highlite) the most important thing for me to do?" (Lorraine, if you will be presenting with slides, you could show an example of this.)
• Bring a spouse or a family member with you who might remind you of qestions or concerns that you have - and who will also listen to the doctor's answers.
• For procedures to be done by the patient, and for multiple medication taking, ask "Could you show me how to do that?"

These are a few patient interactions ideas. See more starting on page 158 of "Teaching patients with low literacy skills, 2nd Ed."

Thanks very much the Regional Literacy Consultants for this helpful information.