HEAP's Health and Reading Initiative
Improving Reading and Health Literacy through a HEAP of Books
There is a link between reading and health illiteracy as factors in both academic failure and poor health outcomes. In 2004, the Institute of Medicine released a report on health literacy titled, Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. This report outlined the extent and cost of health illiteracy, and identified potential intervention points; culture and society, health system, and education system. Based on the recommendation that educators should take advantage of the opportunity provided by existing reading, writing, oral language skills, and mathematics to incorporate health related tasks, materials, and examples into existing lesson plans, HEAP developed the Health and Reading Initiative. The goal of HEAP’s health and reading initiative is to support the development of students’ reading and health literacy by providing teachers with resources for using books containing health topics and skills. HEAP members use MetaCat technology from
MetaLogic to develop and collaboratively edit book templates that provides pre-K-12 teachers with: - Book summaries and reading levels
- Discussion questions for both health content and health skills based on the National Health Education Standards
- Age appropriate assessments
- Vocabulary words
- Additional resources to extend/enhance learning
- Comment section for teachers to share strategies and successes on how the books were use.
Teachers can search the HEAP of Books collection by grade level, genre, health content, and health skills.
 Click here to see a sample of book templates.
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. The health and reading resources are free to teachers in HEAP member states.
Please contact Nancy Hudson, HEAP Coordinator, CCSSO, for more
information!
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