Improving Latino children's early language and literacy development: key features of early childhood education within family literacy programmes

Noting the lack of research on how early childhood education (ECE) programmes within family literacy programmes influence Latino children's early language and literacy development, this study examined key features of ECE programmes, specifically teacher–child interactions and child engagement in language and literacy activities and how these features relate to Latino children's early language and literacy development. Participants were 181 Latino children (3–5 years old) from low-income families enrolled in 22 ECE programmes within family literacy programmes. Teacher–child interactions were of medium quality on socioemotional support and low quality on instructional quality. Latino children spent about 20% of their day engaged in language and literacy activities. Multilevel regression analysis results showed that the length of Latino children's engagement in language and literacy activities in ECE programmes was more strongly related to their English oral language skills and alphabet knowledge than the quality of teacher–child interactions.     

Contributions of the home literacy environment to preschool-aged children's emerging literacy and language skills

This paper reports on a study that examined both the concurrent and logitudinal connections between multiple components of the home environment and indicators of preschool-aged children's literacy and language development. Data were collected from 85 parents and their children at two different times. Results of structural path models indicated that (a) parental literacy habits were positively associated with parental reading beliefs, (b) parental reading beliefs were positively associated with parent-child literacy and language activities in the home, and (c) parent-child literacy and language activities were positively associated with children's print knowledge and reading interest. Parental demographic characteristics were associated with children's expressive and receptive language skills. The results highlight how different components of the home literacy environment are associated with different components of preschool-aged children's literacy and language abilities, findings that become more important as educators and policy-makers look for ways to enhance children's literacy and language development.     

Aesthetic experience and early language and literacy development

The present paper explores the connections between theory and research in language development and aesthetic education and their implications for early childhood classroom practice. The present paper posits that arts experiences make a unique and vital contribution to the child's development of language and literacy, as well as to the sense of self as an active and engaged learner. Emphasizing the significance of personal agency in shaping and motivating language and literacy development, the paper highlights some critical features that link aesthetic experience and engagement with the arts to models of learning and teaching. The relationship between these features and the child's early development of language and literacy, and the special contribution of aesthetic experience to these processes, are considered. Exemplars from classrooms that have effectively incorporated aesthetic experiences with visual arts, poetry and storytelling as integral to language and literacy learning are presented.     

健康素养与癌症防控

本研究对健康素养与癌症预防、筛查、治疗及转归的相关文献进行了综述。目前有大量研究显示健康素养与公众癌症风险意识、癌症知识知晓率、癌症筛查、卫生服务利用能力、治疗依从性、生命质量等呈正相关,与吸烟、酗酒等不健康生活方式呈负相关。有些研究存在样本量小,人群局限、设计不够严谨等问题,也有一些研究结果不支持上述结论,提示应开展多中心的、大型临床研究和队列研究,为研究健康素养与癌症预防、筛查、治疗及转归之间的关系提供更多循证依据。     

Examining the concurrent validity of assessing preschool language and literacy skills

The purpose of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of the assessment for an early language and literacy project. The goal of the project was to promote a successful transition to kindergarten for preschoolers who were at risk for reading difficulties by equipping them with the necessary language and literacy skills needed for early reading success. Both child outcome data and classroom/teacher level data were collected at the beginning and the end of the academic semester. Child-level pre- and post-tests indicated that participating children's language and literacy skills were improved in name writing, letter recognition, beginning sound awareness, rhyming awareness, and print knowledge. Findings from the validity study suggested a significant relationship between- and within-child outcome measures. A significant relationship was also found between norm-referenced child outcome measures and classroom-level measures; however, no significant relationship was identified between criterion-referenced child outcome measures and classroom-level measures. Implications of this study were discussed.     

Health policy and the emerging tobacco reality

Public policy is part of and a creator of modern environments. By intent or neglect, it affects our socially-created and natural worlds. It sets the odds for what organizations and individuals are likely to produce and consume in the form of goods, services and information, and assures how equitably these options for choice-making--and thus for life styles--are dispersed among social and economic groups. Policy is also created by environments: it is influenced by the reality of changing conditions and by the perceptions of those changes by groups who are organized to influence policymakers' views of 'reality'. The direction, humaneness and healthfulness of societal changes--to the extent that they can be guided--depend on whether new and old things are seen by policymakers in new or old ways. Creating environments conducive to health thus requires a two-pronged effort. It means: (1) developing policies that provide incentives to producers and consumers to make more healthful choices than they do today; and (2) creating a social and political climate that will encourage policymakers to choose more healthful policy options. This view point is illustrated here through an analysis of the smoking and health issue, in which changing conditions can potentially be healthfully guided, or alternatively, left to the vagaries of political and economic events. This article outlines the changing economics of tobacco, mainly as seen in its largest form in the U.S.A., its policy implications, and a political strategy to move policy in more healthful directions. Economic data reveal the tobacco sector in affluent nations as one that has been slowly declining, but now at an accelerating rate. At the same time, the tobacco economy is a growing sector in less-industrialized nations. Policy issues involve how to deal with the economic changes in health-promoting ways. Strategically this requires two simultaneous efforts. One is education/informational: posing the smoking/health issue in light of changing conditions, and addressing policy-relevant data (both economic and value-oriented) to the gatekeepers of public action and information (e.g. policymakers and media). The second is environmental/organizational, to improve the feasibility of policy changes by establishing means for transition planning in the tobacco economy.     

Health literacy: addressing the health and education divide

Health literacy as a discrete form of literacy is becoming increasingly important for social, economic and health development. The positive and multiplier effects of education and general literacy on population health, particularly women's health, are well known and researched. However, a closer analysis of the current HIV/AIDS epidemics, especially in Africa, indicates a complex interface between general literacy and health literacy. While general literacy is an important determinant of health, it is not sufficient to address the major health challenges facing developing and developed societies. As a contribution to the health literacy forum in Health Promotion International, this paper reviews concepts and definitions of literacy and health literacy, and raises conceptual, measurement and strategic challenges. It proposes to develop a set of indicators to quantify health literacy using the experience gained in national literacy surveys around the world. A health literacy index could become an important composite measure of the outcome of health promotion and prevention activities, could document the health competence and capabilities of the population of a given country, community or group and relate it to a set of health, social and economic outcomes.     

Health for all: the dream and the reality

What has become clear in the 10 years since Alma-Ata is the global split between the health of the "haves" and the "have nots". This split is not a clean one and there are a number of countries spread out along the line from poorest to richest. Many of these countries are progressing along this line at a speed measurable with familiar indicators: increases in per capita income and literacy, decreases in maternal and under-5s mortality rates. Progress is uneven: 64 countries (40% of the world's population) experience more than 80% of the world's under-5s deaths and more than 90% of the maternal mortality. Although under-5s mortality is projected to be much lower by the year 2000, Africa and southern Asia are predicted to have unacceptably high rates of 100 deaths/1000 live births. Even though solutions are available to fundamental health problems, the progress has been slow. In the industrial countries an important step has been the creation of a European region-wide strategy for health for all. In 1980 the 33 European Member States of WHO set 38 targets and designated 65 indicators for systematic and routine monitoring by countries. An evaluation in 1985 revealed that European members had made strong efforts to monitor progress and a number of countries had formulated national strategies in line with the regional one. Canada and the US have also taken steps in adopting national strategies: Canada has made strides in organization of health services, the US in recognizing the inequities in the availability of health services to low income populations. In developing countries a few countries have made significant progress beyond what had been expected, especially Costa Rica, Sri Lanka, and Kerala State in India as measured in reduced infant mortality rates. An analysis by Caldwell showed that these countries had a number of conditions in common: reasonable level of female education and female autonomy, a politically active community, and easy access to health services promoting maternal and child care, immunization, family planning, home visits and food availability. The poorest countries have lacked these conditions and their progress has been slow and painful.