Literacy And Health Literacy

Understanding the educator and learners role, assessments, methods of assessing needs, readiness to learn, learning styles and instruments are equally as important as having an understanding of theories. According to Bastable (2014), the educators role includes: assessing problems/deficits, provide information/present it uniquely and appropriately, identify progress, give feedback and follow-up, reinforce learning, and evaluate learners’ ability. Additionally, the educator must be able to assess the learner, establish his or her needs, the learners readiness to learn, literacy, and which style of learning would best benefit him or her. Literacy should be considered a key principle as a person 's literacy and/or health literacy can impact

261). Health literacy "is defined by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, Title V, as the degree to which an individual has the capacity to obtain, communicate, process, and understand basic health information and services to make appropriate health decisions (Bastable, 2014, p. 261). Literacy and health literacy, can affect the learners motivation, compliance, ability to understand discharge instructions, properly make informed decisions and so forth. Additionally, readability and comprehension must also be taken into consideration. It is crucial to the wellbeing and safety of our learners that literacy, readability, and comprehension are determined to ensure appropriate education methods and models are used. Along these same lines, Nurse Educators should also take special consideration to the learners age, gender, socioeconomic class,

Nurse Educators may have the opportunity to choose their setting, however, more often the setting is dictated by their institutions. Instructional methods and materials can include vast varieties. These will be dependent on the setting, the individual learner, the institution, resources available to the educator, topic being presented, and the Educator. Bastable (2014), provides an expansive list of some of the more common instructional methods: lecture, group discussion. one-to-one instruction, demonstration, return demonstration, gaming, simulation, role playing, role modeling, and self-instruction. It is beneficial to note that all of these instructional methods come with both advantages and limitations which educators should take into consideration. Once the instructional method is determined the instructional materials will need to be considered. Examples of instructional materials include pamphlets, books, audiotapes, CDs, videotapes, DVDs, worksheets, video learning, and more (Bastable, 2014). As previously discussed for instructional methods, instructional materials also come with their advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, both instructional methods and materials should be evaluated. Lastly, evaluations can be both formative and/or summative and are essential in the evaluation of the students