We all buy or make flashcards with the best of intentions, but how can you use them to make a long-term difference to your child’s progress?

 

In this post and video, I break down the quick daily activities that will ensure your child can make the most of their flashcards and remember them in the long term.

For the purposes of this video, I used the Wordier Illustrated Vocabulary Flashcards, though you can use this technique with any flashcards, including homemade ones. 

DAY 1 – INTRODUCE THE NEW WORDS

Follow the steps below for each new flashcard that you introduce. 

1. Look at the word and the image, where possible. Say the word out loud. If you need to check the pronunciation, visit http://oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ and use their audio feature. 
   • If you have the Wordier flashcards, the digital version of the flashcards will include the pronunciation of each word, too. 
2. After reading the word, see if it is at all familiar to your child. Discuss what they think it might mean. If it’s an illustrated card, try to use the image to help. 
3. After discussing the word, read the example sentence on the back and try to guess what the word means. All Wordier flashcards include at least one example sentence so you won’t need to look anything up if you’re using these.
4. If you’re using home-made flashcards, you can look up an example sentence on wordhippo.com, http://wordsmyth.net/ or in a children’s dictionary. 
5. Finally, read the definition of the word. Make sure your child fully understands it.
6. Ask your child to come up with their own example sentence. If you feel confident in doing so, correct them so that their usage is correct from the beginning.
7. If your child is using home-made flashcards, make your own illustrated version by asking them to draw a picture that shows the meaning of the word. This will really help to ingrain the meaning in their mind.

Once you’ve followed the steps above for the first flashcard, you can do this with a couple of others.

 

DAY 2 – REVIEW THE DAY 1 WORDS

1. Review the word and image (either from the illustrated flashcards or the one that your child drew yesterday). See if your child can remember the meaning themselves. They don’t need to recite the exact meaning that’s written on the card; it’s actually better if they can paraphrase it as it shows they’ve fully understood it. 
2. If your child struggles to remember the word (which is understandable), read the example sentence to them to see if it jogs their memory. 
3. If your child remembers the definition, ask them to come up with a new example sentence. If they don’t remember, tell them the definition and then ask them to come up with a sentence.
4. Go through this process for each one of the Day 1 words.

Remember, this is about quality, not quantity. Don’t try to do too many words at once. Covering 3-4 words a day is plenty. 

If you have time after completing the steps above, do a quick review of all of the words. Even though you went through them just 5 minutes ago, getting your child to recall their meanings is still worthwhile. 

 

DAYS 3 AND 4 – TAKE A BREAK OR COVER NEW WORDS

Our memories work best when we forget information a little before reviewing it. With this in mind, you should put the Day 1 and 2 vocabulary to the side for a couple of days. You don’t have to ignore these words completely, though. You can look out for them in the world around you or see if you can use them in conversation. 

On Days 3 and 4, you can introduce a few completely new words using the techniques listed in the sections above.

DAY 5 – REVIEW THE WORDS FROM THE WEEK

On Day 5, do a quick review of words from earlier in the week. Hopefully, just saying the word will be enough for your child to remember the definition. If they’re still struggling to remember the definition, let them take a peek at the images.

Notice that at this point, we haven’t covered any synonyms. This is deliberate as we don’t want to overload your child, which will be detrimental to their learning and their well-being. 

DAY 6 – START TO COVER SYNONYMS

Note that Day 6 does not need to immediately follow Day 5. If you’re working through the cards from Monday to Friday, you can leave Day 6 until the following Monday. 

On Day 6, start to cover the synonyms of the words from earlier in the week. Remember that some words don’t have a natural synonym (e.g. cobblestone) so don’t force your child to learn synonyms if they don’t make sense. 

This is a good time to add synonyms to any home-made flashcards, if you haven’t done so already. Use a good thesaurus to help. 

If you’re adding your own synonyms, try not to go crazy with them. It’s better to pick 3 or 4 close synonyms than to write a huge batch of words that are only tangentially related to the word on your flashcard.

When learning synonyms, ask your child to use them in a sentence, too.

Once your child is able to recall the meaning of a word and use it in a sentence without seeing the image, you can put the flashcard in your “done” pile. Remember to return to your “done” pile after a couple of weeks to ensure your child still remembers all of the completed words.

 

EXTENSION WORK – Exploring Collocations

Collocations are word pairs or groups of words that are commonly used together in the English language, e.g. “activity”, is often used with “flurry” as in “a flurry of activity”. 

Learning collocations will help your child to use words correctly when forming their own sentences. Once your child has learnt the definition of a word, you should explore any collocations and come up with example sentences accordingly. 

The Wordier Illustrated Flashcards include collocations on the cards where appropriate. Otherwise, you can google collocations of the words from your own flashcards. Not all words have collocations.

 

EXTENSION WORK – Test your child on the synonyms only

A week or so later, try testing your child only on the synonyms of a flashcard word. For example, if you covered the “flamboyant” flashcard originally, ask your child is they can remember the meaning of “ostentatious” (one of the synonyms on the back of the card). If they can’t, take out your original set of flashcards and encourage them to associate the synonym with the original card and image.

When learning synonyms, you can go through the process from Days 1 and 2, substituting the synonym for the original word.

EXTENSION WORK – Online Vocab Games

All of the Wordier Illustrated Flashcards are accompanied by online games where the words can be matched to their definitions. This is a great way of reviewing the words that you’ve already discussed at home.

You can also make your own digital set of flashcards by heading to quizlet.com.

Wordier helps children to improve their vocabulary with no fuss and in record time. View our full range of resources here.