First, it would be great to work through the words in the order of their frequency.
A list of 2000 most frequent words in Majjhima Nikaya:
http://dhamma.ru/paali/MN2000word_list.odt
Sutta-pitaka (without Khuddaka Nikaya) frequency list:
http://dhamma.ru/paali/word_list.odt
Sutta and Vinaya word frequency list:
http://dhamma.ru/paali/wordlist.zip
Kurt Schmidt
A Frequency Dictionary of Pali: Core Vocabulary for Learners
http://www.amazon.com/Frequency-Dictionary-Pali-Vocabulary-Learners/dp/1478369159/
Complete word list of all Pali words (about 967.000) as occuring in the CSCD (VRI) Tipitaka edition
http://wayback.archive.org/web/20150707075127/http://www.nibbanam.com/sortedFrequencyPali.zip