Good vocabulary instruction emphasizes useful words (words that your learner will hear and need to use frequently in the health care context), important words (key words that will help learners accomplish communication tasks in the health care context), and difficult words (idiomatic words, words with more than one meaning, etc.).

In providing vocabulary instruction for the SHINE health literacy units we have tried to provide instruction for your learners that:

• Activates their prior knowledge  
  
• Encourages them to use a dictionary and access the range of information it provides
  
• Encourages integration of the new words into their working vocabularies
  
• Provides them multiple exposures to new vocabulary through listening, discussion and reading activities
  
• Focuses on a small number of important words
  

If you want to learn more about teaching vocabulary and would like to extend the activities we have provided in this unit, please check out the following helpful web resources:

Applying Research in Reading Instruction for Adults at http://www.nifl.gov/partnershipforreading/publications/adult.html

Strategies for teaching vocabulary at
http://muskingum.edu/~cal/database/general/reading.html#GeneralApproach

Teaching vocabulary: two dozen tips and techniques at
http://people.bu.edu/jpettigr/Artilces_and_Presentations/Vocabulary.htm