The following strategies to increase learners' vocabulary knowledge have been suggested in the literature:

• Teach vocabulary that learners will need to use often (high- frequency vocabulary).
• Teach key sight words that learners will need, such as emergency, 911, last name, first name, especially when learners are at beginning literacy levels. (Sight word knowledge is the ability to recognize words without having to sound them out.)
• Provide multiple opportunities for learners to read and use specific words in different texts and activities that are thematically related, such as the following:
  • Brainstorm vocabulary on a specific topic, such as food shopping.
  • Practice food vocabulary with flash cards.
  • Practice dialogues in which food vocabulary is used (e.g. "I am going shopping." "What do you need?" "I need bread, beans, and chicken.").
  • Complete cloze exercises (worksheets with sentences or paragraphs about food; key vocabulary words related to food are left out, with a blank for the learners to fill in).
  • Make a shopping list of items they need to buy.
  • For homework, copy food words from packages.
• Preview key vocabulary that will be used in a text or activity.
• Give the meanings of vocabulary words tha t may be difficult.
• Have learners write their own sentences with words they have read in a text.
• Teach learners how to use dictionaries.
• Use computer programs to provide more interactive vocabulary learning opportunities.

(See Activities to Promote Reading Development for descriptions of specific activities.)

Syntactic processing

Syntactic processing (related to reading comprehension in the literature on native English speakers) involves understanding the structures of the language and making connections among words in a sentence or among sentences and paragraphs in a text. For example, learners should be taught language forms that change the meanings of words, such as prefixes and suffixes. Learners should know common prefixes, such as non-, in-, im-, and un- that make words negative (as in possible/impossible, happy/unhappy), and suffixes, such as the -ed verb ending used to form the past tense and the passive voice. They should also understand words that bring cohesion to a text (e.g., however, therefore, nevertheless).