The use of flashcards to educate children at home and in school has unbelievably proven to be one of the best inventions countless times. Parents who use them testify how helpful it is and how their children improve over time. The most amazing thing about it is that the use of flashcards has not been affected despite technological innovations. How does the use of flashcards help parents, especially in these busy days? Find this and more out in this article.
What are flashcards?
Flashcards are small two-sided note cards with a prompt on one side and information about the prompt on the other side used for testing and improving memory through practised information retrieval. It serves as a learning aid or a means to recover one’s memory.
Flashcards have been proven to give children and students a better knowledge of what is being taught. Many kids (toddlers) sometimes find it difficult to understand what their parents teach them but with the use of flashcards, effective learning is made easy. Flashcards could come in different types. They could be images or letters or perhaps numbers in the case of mathematics.
However, flashcards are very simple but an effective tool when used properly. Flashcards can also be used in classrooms and at home.
Interestingly, even with technologies in place, most parents fail to see the importance of flashcards because they feel their children can learn with their tablets.
Unfortunately, this is so sad as those tools tend to cause more harm than good. To boost your child’s way of learning, using flashcards will make children never forget what’s being taught and draw them closer to their tutor/parent, unlike tablets that encourage individualism.
In a general concept, every child indeed begins their learning at home, so a good way to teach your child at home is by making use of flashcards. In other words, this article discusses the importance, benefits, and how to use flashcards as a parent.
Importance of flashcards
The importance of the use of flashcards is as mentioned below:
- Flashcards increases confidence
- It is portable and efficient
- Flashcards create visual stimulation
- It is versatile
- It is enriched with better vocabulary
- It improves cognitive development
- It develops the memory for active recall
- It increases the ability to compose stories
- It improves child-parent communication and student-teacher relationship.
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Benefits of flashcards
Are flashcards good for your children’s learning? To get the answer to this question, let’s quickly discuss the benefits of flashcards in teaching and why it is a good teaching system.
- Inexpensive: Flashcards save cost and it is an effective method of studying
- Portable: Unlike textbooks, binders, and notebooks, flashcards are easy to transport from one place to another
- Customizable: Since flashcards can be on any material, students can customize them and make them unique
- Versatile: flashcards can be used for other subjects, not only a particular subject. It can basically be used when preparing for an examination for easy memorization
- Accelerated learning speed
Disadvantages of flashcards
Not only do flashcards have benefits, but there are disadvantages attached to them. See them below;
- Ignores other learning methods: when flashcards are misused, it leads to ignorance. That is, another learning method will just be a waste of time because the student is already used to learning with flashcards
- Memorization over learning: the inappropriate use of flashcards makes the student memorize (cram) instead of contextualizing what is being read.
- It can be time-consuming and inefficient: Here, when trying to write out or make a flashcard, it takes time and it is very tedious to make.
- Flashcards can be prone to errors like misremembering, forgetting, or overestimating one’s knowledge
How to use flashcards as a parent
- Categorization game: Print out flashcards from various categories and let your child sort them out.
- Create personal vocabulary/letter/phonics/mathematical concept bags.
- Use two sets of flashcards to play a pair-matching game: Place all the cards facing down. Take turns to turn over two cards and get your child to match up the picture with the corresponding image.
- Use flashcards to retell stories: After reading a story, use flashcards to get your child to retell the story by putting the cards in order.
- Guess my card’s vocabulary elicitation activity: Hold a selection of flashcards so that your child cannot see them. Explain that you have some animals (or foods, or parts of a house, or whatever your topic is) in your hand and ask your child to guess what cards you have. If they guess correctly, give them the card.
Conclusion
When making use of flashcards, always ensure it is not used inappropriately cause there are dangers attached to them. Yes! We agree that flashcards are traditional and ancient ways of learning. However, it is also good for one’s understanding of difficult subjects. It even aids preparation for an exam as we have earlier discussed. But if you find the use of flashcards exhausting, you can hire a professional home tutor for your child at Passbuttons and ease off the stress. Join Passbuttons now for free.
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FAQs
What is the purpose of using flashcards?
Flashcards are used for testing and improving memory through practised information retrieval.
How do flashcards help children?
Learning flashcards helps children explore colours, animals, emotions, and daily routines. It also builds their vocabulary.
What is the meaning of flashcards for kids?
A flashcard is a card having words, numbers, or pictures that is held up briefly by a teacher to a class or a parent to a child.
How important are flashcards?
Flashcards support active recall, which makes it easier to call up information at a future date.