Many of our students at Literacy Volunteers need help managing their health and the health of their families. Although we cannot give them medical advice about specific problems, we can help them develop the tools to improve their health. Whether it's reading a medicine bottle label or filling out a medical history form at a doctor's office, literacy skills play a huge role in how healthy a person is and how well they access medical care.

With the obesity epidemic that is sweeping our country, many adults are living with diabetes. Finding medical materials that are written on an appropriate level for our students is sometimes a challenge. Jenni Russ, RN, CCM, CMCN of Secure Health Plans of Georgia, has written an article on diabetic foot care that is easy to read and understand. If you know that your student has diabetes, then this article would be a good basis for a lesson. Click here to read the article: Living with Diabetes.

The National Institute for Literacy website has an entire collection of materials devoted to health literacy. Click here to access the Tutor materials, including lesson plans.

There are also student materials on the site. Click here to access these materials, which include a number of easy to read medical sites covering a broad range of topics. There are links to other sites, stories and activities for adult learners and links to dictionaries and glossaries that explain medical terms.

Please choose a web resource from the above list. After reading and studying this material, please click here and write a paragraph or two about what you have learned about health literacy. Then click "Send" to send it to Literacy Volunteers. A staff member will read your response and contact you. Please feel free to comment on the module and offer suggestions. Completing this module fulfills Literacy Volunteer's requirement for annual tutor re-certification. Thanks for participating.

If you use some of this material with your students, please let us know how the lesson went. If you have a health-related lesson that you feel was really helpful to your students, please contact us and we may post it on this site as a resource for other tutors!