“Key survival words are printed on flash cards; either on paper cut to size or on index cards. We review these cards every class. The time varies. Sometimes we spend only a few minutes; other times we spend 15 or 20 minutes going through them.

We developed a contest in the class. It went like this. For every word that the learners read correctly, it belonged to them. For every word they did not get, it belonged to me. Sometimes I let them see the cards they missed so that they could try to read them correctly. At the end, they counted both piles. The team with the highest score won.

At the end of the program, I took each learner individually, and had them read the cards to me while I kept track of the correctly read words.”

Debbie Baker
A Plain Language Guide in Reading, Writing and Math. Kentville, NS:
Partners in Employment Outreach (Spring 1998), p. 2.6.