In the upper left-hand corner on the Life Skills web page is the name of the website, Education.com, along with the words “Bringing learning to life.” The author’s motivation and goal behind the information on this website is to not only educate teachers, parents and students about life skills, but to make the learning applicable to life. Another goal that the author has with this website is located under the picture of the six teenagers. It states, “Our goal is to help prepare your children for independence.” This website is filled with articles and information to make this goal happen!

The web page is referred to as a Life Skills Resource Center and that is exactly what it is. It is evident by the numerous resources that the author values children and adolescents and teaching them well. If readers cannot find a resource on a particular topic on this site, they can click on the link “Search Topic” and even “Refine Topic," which highlights additional areas to help readers refine the broad topic they need information. If readers cannot find the information they need, they can contact the website to request information or ask questions. "Contact us" is located on the bottom of the homepage.

The Life Skills web page is connected to the website Education.com. Readers can learn more about this website by clicking on the “About Us” link. The author explains more of the motivation behind the website on the “About Us” web page. The author acknowledges that raising kids is not always easy and Education.com is available to make sure no one has to do it alone. Parent/family involvement is critical for a child’s success at school and in life. The author notes that there is a lot of information on the internet these days, but knowing how to find the best information is more critical. The author states that, “Education.com is a one-stop source of information for all parents’ educational, developmental, and parenting questions.”

This motivation and goal of the author and site is evident by the numerous articles on the Life Skills page. The author wants readers to be informed about children and their needs and the challenges there are in teaching children life skillls. There are ten hypertext articles listed under Featured Articles. These articles feature a variety of authors, all from well-established agencies, who share a similar goal as the Life Skills web page.

TheMint.org - states on its website that its goal is to provide “tools to help parents as well as educators teach children to manage money wisely and develop good financial habits: the building blocks for a secure future. Given the current rate of savings and debt in America, this is a lesson that desperately needs to be learned.”

Educational Resource Information Center - states its purpose is to provide “ready access to education literature to support the use of educational research and information to improve practice in learning, teaching, educational decision-making, and research.”

Forefront Families - their web page states that their co-founders, Family experts Brian and Sally Burgess, are passionate about equipping parents in raising extraordinary kids - kids who are confident, happy, successful, respectful, well adjusted and positive contributors to their family, school, and later the society in which they live.”

The National Voice of Foster Parents - states that, “The mission of the National Voice of Foster Parents is to support foster parents in achieving safety, permanence and well-being for the children and youth in their care.”

Under these ten article links, there are an additional ten articles, including seven more on the next page. These topics include:

Time Management

Coping with Stress

Teaching Non-verbal Communication

Social Skills

This website is packed full of information that will help any teacher or parent in educating and teaching practical life skills to their student or child. The author is wise to include articles that compliment and enforce its initial goal and motivation of its site – to “prepare children for independence.” The author gives parents and educators almost every tool possible to equip children in these life skills.

Questions are scrolling through an area, under the second set of articles, entitled "Recent Questions” site. When readers clicks on a question, answers are given from other contributing readers (parents, teachers, students/children.) This is an opportunity for readers to become reader-writers with this opportunity to contribute to the website.

Under this section is another area that lists “Related Topics” in which some links are highlighted in blue and others in orange. Readers can click on Physical Health or Extracurricular Activities to read more information about each of these topics.

The author is writing to the reader who wants to be an involved parent (or teacher) and learn practical ways to to teach critical life skills to their children. It is directed to the reader who takes the responsibility seriously to teach and practice good life skills to their children/students. The targeted reader is someone who does not "know it all”, but is always learning and open to sharing on the website what has worked for them (by answering questions.)

One of the goals of the Life Skills-Education.com website is to engage its reader. Along with exploring the different hypertext articles on this site and answering some of the questions that other readers submitted, readers can also submit articles for the web site. Submission Guidelines are located on the bottom of the Life Skills home page, and readers, especially teachers, are encouraged to submit articles.

A reader could spend many hours on the Life Skills web page reading the life skills articles related to the age of their children/students, along with answering/asking questions, submitting an article for the website and exploring activities geared for their children/students regarding a certain topic. For example, “Activity Finder”, located on the right side of the web page, will give readers ideas on how to practically help their child improve in an academic subject. By clicking on “writing” for a “high school student”, the reader will have many different available links to learn how to help their child improve this area, such as “Write a Letter to your Future Self.” The goal of this low-stress activity is for the reader’s child to begin thinking about future goals and to also spend time reflecting on his/her life.

If readers need another resource to help a child learn about a certain topic, they can click on “Find a Book,” located under “Activity Finder” on the right side of the web page. Readers can enter their child’s age and a theme of a book they would like to either “read aloud” or “read alone.” Clicking on “3rd grader” and a theme of “friends” and “read aloud” will take the reader to PBS Parents Bookfinder, which gives the reader 107 options of books to choose from.

Readers can also become more engaged in this website by registering their personal information. When readers specify who they are (parent, teacher, student) and the ages of their students or children, this website will send the readers newsletters pertinent to the needs of their students/children. There is also a box on this page for the reader to mark if it is okay for the website to contact them. This would be for the purpose of sending the reader occasional updates about the website’s features, special events, notification and carefully selected parent-approved partner offers. The reader can sign up for a newsletter also on the Life Skills web page. It is called “Early Years Milestones”, and readers enter their email address along with the age of their children. Readers will then receive another newsletter specific to their child’s age.

Some of the limitations of this Life Skills web page could involve parents who don’t hold the same values as the author of this site. For example, on the “Helping Your Child Learn Character", the article emphasizes parents setting a good example to their children - displaying honest, moral and caring character. Possibly some readers of this web page would want good character for their children but they are unwilling to change their own character. Or perhaps readers struggle with their own money management, so how will they teach their child good money management skills? Some readers possibly would rely more on the teachers to teach and instruct their child in life skills and not assume that responsibility themselves, perhaps because they are too busy. If readers do not share the same values as the author of this web page, it will hinder the reader from benefiting from the life skills information.



Life Skills - Utah State Office of Education - Click here to read my rhetorical analysis of the Life Skills - Utah State Office of Education.

Comparison and Role of Hypertext - Click here to read my comparison and the role of hypertext of these two websites - Life Skills - Utah State Office of Education and Life Skills - Education.com.

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