Thursday, March 20, 2008

Flash Cards

Children learn in many ways and using flash cards is one. Of course it may not work for some children but I felt that given time, it is actually a very effective learning tool. Why do I say so?

There are many types of flash cards out there and I must say more than half of them are crap! It's produced to make money! No thoughts are put into how it can stimulate a child. Anyway.. what you want to look for in a set of flash cards are clear pictures/numbers/alphabets with a plain white (preferably) or coloured background. Each card is to focus only on one picture/number/alphabet and nothing else. Why you may ask... It's common sense really... you want the kid to focus on that one thing and if the card has many things on it... the child will lose focus or get confused.

Children below the age of three learn using both right and left brain. When we flash a card..the child is learning using the right brain where it learns by absorbing the whole picture. And when you flash the cards, don't linger too long on one particular card, just flash and read and move on. Repetition is important. At times your child might be bored or not interested, just continue flashing, they will listen and look up once in a while to check what you are flashing. Do this everyday or a few times a day if your child likes it. Take not more than 5 minutes. Just flash a few cards a day good enough. You can make the flashing more interesting by singing, stick the cards on the wall (use blue tag), play treasure hunting....

Happy flashing mummies and daddies!!

To date, I must say it's a very effective tool for me and Reese. After a month of flashing number cards, Reese can say and recognize numbers 0-10 and everywhere he goes, when he sees numbers.. he will point and say the numbers be it on the parking lot wall or billboards...

Recently I have been flashing alphabet cards and after a cool 1 month i think... Reese can recognize all the alphabets and can say 23 out of 26 alphabets and the things each alphabet represents.

By the way, Reese is not even 1.5 years old yet!

I spend about 2 to 5 minutes each day to flash the cards. Sometimes I do it twice a day. So go give it a try and don't give up!

2 comments:

Moomykin said...

Good job, Mommy.

Aiyo, so "rajin" with the flash cards. Maybe if/when we meet, you can share a bit more and answer some queries...

Keep it up!!

A gift from God said...

Sure sure.... will be soon.... :)
next month.. will be super busy the next 2 weekslah....