Check out vocabulary.com to learn new words.  It pulls words from many places, including the New York Times.

As students progress, they need to learn a lot more to be able to pass the GED.  They can do it via online tools like this one. Even if your student reads at a very low level, you can read to your student and discuss the articles together. This builds their critical thinking skills --which will be even more important in the 2014 test.  Even if a student can't read a word like grandeur, he or she can learn what it means and how to use it in a sentence.