American Health&Wellness Curricular And Textbook Research (Grade K-8)

Concerns over health issues among citizens in China are rising constantly in recent years. Report of China’s Residents’ Health Literacy Survey showed an unfortunate status that we are in urgent need of school-based health education. After the publishment of Health Education Guidelines for Primary and Secondary School by China’s Ministry of Education in2008, education departments and schools in some provinces started paying more attention to health education. Nonetheless, lacking of health curricular standards and textbooks as well as insufficient and unqualified health educators, the establishment of health education was utterly slow.Relatively speaking, America’s health education has been evolving over a century, the achievements in its theories, textbooks, evaluations and researches were walking in the forefront of the world. The author analyzed Health&Wellness Textbooks (Grade K-8) which was of the most usage in America from the prospect of nurturing health literacy using methods such as documentary analysis, text analysis, and comparative analysis from quantitative and qualitive prospects. The cultivation of health literacy was categorized into3domains health as a way of behaving, health as a body of knowledge, health and its interactions with science, technology, society and environment. By summarizing the traits of the content and composing style the author is trying to give examples for relative areas in China’s compulsory education.By analysis and comparation, it is suggested that Health&Wellness Textbooks contained multiple health contents, varies modules, ample resources and respectively complete evaluations which should be an appropriate pattern for China’s health education. Comparing China’s Health Education Guidelines for Primary and Secondary School and other compulsory curricular standards with American Textbooks’content, the former needs to be enhanced form political level and practive establishment. By summarizing some particular characters in Health&Wellness program, the author give suggestions says affording political support, paying more attention in school education programmes, enhancing curriculum development and establishing assessment systems to the evolution of China’s school health education.