Teaching a Word List to Adult Beginning Readers

Extract

To get an adult to learn one of the One-Two Hundred Most Commonly Written Words lists is like shovelling coal into a smouldering fire. You know it’s going in, but not when it will ignite.

Yet is a necessary segment of their learning, and approaching it in a Ouija Board fashion to make sentences out of the words after a first, few introductory steps helps.

First, adults appreciate an explanation of the list’s origin and worth. It takes only a moment to explain the words were compiled by sampling several thousand articles and books to see which words occurred most frequently. Taking five minutes and having the learner circle some words from the list in any newspaper article proves this to the reader.

Also, give the learner a copy of the list to keep. The learner can track how many have been learned and also have the option to proceed on his or her own.

At this initial stage, some people benefit from having each word from the list on flash cards in order to learn the words. They can also form the cards into simple sentences. When comfortable for the learner and using only the list itself, point to the words on a small portion of the list for the learner to recognise. Try as much as possible to make a coherent thought from the words: was he for it (?) can spark for what (?) for example.