National Health and Reading Initiative
This health and reading initiative is being developed by CCSSO's Health Education Assessment Project (HEAP) and a collaborative team of health education experts across the country to ultimately contribute to improved health literacy in our children.
The health and reading resources are free to teachers in HEAP member states. Please contact Nancy Hudson, HEAP Coordinator, CCSSO, for more information about HEAP membership and other HEAP products and services. Why the HEAP is developing it: - There is growing scholarly evidence that social and emotional learning initiatives can have a signifant impact on classroom
productivity and academic performance and teachers are beginning to incorporate such strategies into their literature segments.
- In many states, elementary teachers
have not been exposed to a course in teaching health education in their teacher preparation experiences.
- There is a link between reading and health illiteracy as factors
in both academic failure and poor health outcomes.
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HEAP's visionary experts knew that a useful
resource, needed by reading teachers, should be an online, searchable database on books that address current heath issues. With MetaLogic's technology, the team was able to design and implement their project in minutes, without programming. The book resources include appropriate health discussion and assessment questions aligned to the National Health Education Standards. Teachers can search the resources in a variety of ways, such as by grade level, genre, and/or health skills and content, and then utilize the resources to provide expert health instruction into the reading segment.
The health and reading initiative is a collaboratively-maintained, custom-defined database of book resources. Teachers can search the book resources by genre, grade level, health topics, and health skills. Search results are displayed as book icons. Teachers click the book icon to view the resource. Each resource operates like a typical website (matching the custom-defined database template) and includes sections such as: a book summary, reading levels, vocabulary, discussion questions for health skills and content,
age-appropriate assessments, vocabulary words, and resources for teachers to support lesson development.
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Sample Search Result |
Each book resource operates like a website. Teachers can comment about how they have used
these resources in the classroom. New book resources are continually being developed and now include a series on taking chronic illnesses to school (asthma, diabetes, etc.) and a series targeting health issues in Native Americans. Over 100 book resources are currently under review by collaborative teams.
Try it Out ~ Click Here for Guest Access!
How the Project has Expanded: - Several HEAP member states have begun to develop resources for specific books used in their states.
- University faculty involved with the HEAP have been using this system in pre-service education, where students create their own resources as classroom assignments, using expertly-created resources as models.
About the Technology:
The MetaCat® database and application development platform by MetaLogic enabled the realization of this goal very efficiently and cost-effectively by non-technical health education experts. They designed an initial template as shown below at left. The national team began adding and editing the resources online on a periodic basis. Monthly web meetings are held to discuss any issues. The template was revised several times based on feedback before the team settled on the current resource template. Updates to the template were instantly available to the editors. An example resource under development is the book Murphy Meets the Treadmill, shown below. Book resources operate like simple websites.
Notice how the menu choices on the blue left sidebar of Murphy Meets the Treadmill match the template. Documents can have subsections. Again, if adjustments are made to the template by a project manager, such as the need to add a new section or change the name of an existing one, they become instantly available to endusers (with permission). Users with edit permissions will have edit icons enabling them to open each section into a Word-like editor for editing, as illustrated by the inner image in Murphy Meets the Treadmill labeled "Text Editor". Full edit history tracking is included.
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