Reading Skills for Today's Adults

One afternoon Deb noticed her son, Nate, scratching his head – a lot. She looked in his hair and saw head lice. Head lice are insects that need human blood to survive. Their bites cause itching. 

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Lice hide in the hair and scalp. Cleaning the hair makes lice easier to find. They tend to stay still when they are wet. Deb shampooed and conditioned Nate’s hair. She found tiny tan eggs, called nits, close to his scalp. Good places to look for lice eggs are above the ears and toward the back of the neck. 

The nits are not like dandruff. They do not brush off. To remove them from the hair, Deb used a fine-toothed comb. Sometimes the nits stuck tightly to the hair. Drugstores sell nit-removal kits that have a hair rinse designed to loosen the glue that holds the nits to the hair. 

Deb tried the home version of the drugstore rinse. She had good results. The nits were loosened by wrapping Nate’s head in a towel soaked in white vinegar. It had the same effect as the drugstore hair rinse. 

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Deb checked her son’s head daily until she was sure the lice were gone. She also washed all of Nate’s sheets, pillowcases, and hats in hot water.