A final note about learning vocabulary

Try to avoid teaching skills in isolation. Historically, literacy was taught as series of skills that needed to be mastered. Learners started by learning the letters of the alphabet and then progressed to words and later sentence formation. Rather than take this approach, help learners decode text that is already meaningful to them.

The tools discussed need to be used with topics that are important to the learner. When teaching decoding skills or word attack skills, begin with a meaningful text, preferably something that the learner has chosen. If the learner is not advanced enough to choose a text, start with pictures that develop a meaningful context.