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Why
Flash Cards?
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Easier:
It is easier to teach a
two-year-old to read at home than it is to teach a
six-year-old at school.
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A
joyous moment for mothers and babies.:
Since babies would
rather learn than do anything else in the world, and would rather be with their
parents than with anyone else in the world, there are few activities as joyous
as learning-to-read sessions.
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Reading is the very basis of all
: If
mother teaches her baby to read at one, two, or three years of age he will not
fail to learn to read in school at six, seven, or eight years of age.
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Wondrous thing : It is a wondrous
thing for a baby, or child, or an adult to be able to read.
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Babies are linguistic geniuses:
Babies take in
raw facts such as written and spoken words at a rate that no adult could come
close to matching.
Why is it crucial to 'flash word' during early
from 3 months ?
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In
the first 6 years of life, a
children has a mind that
absorbs
great amounts of information
without any
effort.
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This
is also the
child's greatest learning
capability period.
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Thus,
flashing words using
flash cards
can help
stimulate the development of both
hemispheres of the child's brain.
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The
left brain is sharpened through languages while the right brain is strengthen
through pictures.
Flash cards (especially
Chinese characters) can help to achieve
whole brain development by
stimulating both the child's
visual and auditory simultaneously.
A well balanced development of the whole brain enhances the child's absorbent
mind, learning skills, memory power, analytical and reasoning abilities.
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The children who have
strong
reading skills
since young
will have a
relaxing and enjoyable 'life
long learning process' throughout his life time.
What to do in each flash cards session?
- Pick up any number
of flash crds.
- Present the flash
cards rapidly to your child at arm’s length.
- Can flash from
the front to the back, but the more preferred method is to flash
from the back to the front.
- While flashing the
flash cards, read the words rapidly and loudly in a clear,
high-pitched and enthusiastic voice.
- Be excited and
joyous all the time.
- At the end of
flashing, jumble up the flash cards. You may repeat the session for
any number of times. You may wish to wait for about 5 minutes
although there is no harm doing it immediately. It is suggested to
flash the flash cards for 3 sessions in one day. If your child does
not want it, do not do it. Do not bribe him into seeing it. Find
another opportunity. All babies want to learn through play.
- Always stop before
your child wants to stop. This will keep your child’s eagerness,
enthusiasm and expectation for the next session of flashing.
- On the second day,
retire 1 or any number of flash cards and replace it (or them) with
the same number of any number of cards. Remember to be flexible and
creative. Always let your child guide you to the level of his thirst
of learning at that moment. Chances are, your child will request to
see the flashcards.
- Do the same on
the third day and onwards. The key to successful early learning is
to be joyous about the whole process. Remember to smile, smile,
smile!
- At the end of
every session, kiss and hug your child and exclaim how wonderful he
is. Give him ‘high-fives’! Tap on his shoulders, anchor him with all
the positive messages. Programme into his subconscious mind that he
is a super learner. And you love to teach him.
Important tips on successful flash card learning session
- The conditions
required for flashing cards are:
a)
you are light-hearted, happy and
joyous.
b)
Your child is well-rested, happy
and joyous
c)
A quiet environment, free of
distractions. Clear the room if required.
d)
Switch off the TV, take the phone off
the hook, and minimize the unnecessary sounds eg. Transferring pagers
and handphones to silent mode.
- Stop at the time
when your child is still keen and interested in the session. It is
important not to overdo the sessions. Learning must not be carried
out for too long a period of time in view of your child’s short
attention span. Enter into the child’s world rather than pulling him
into the adult world. Never, never, never bore your child. Remember,
he learns at least 50 times faster than you do!
- Do not be afraid
to teach long words. Long words pose no problems to your child and
are in fact interesting and easily recognizable.
- At the intial
introductory flash card session, avoid putting two words that look
similar together, eg. ‘head’ and ‘hand’ to minimize possible
confusion ( in the ‘look-say’ flashcard method, avoid arranging
words phonetically like ‘cat’, ‘bat’, ‘fat’, ‘hat’, ‘mat’, ‘pat’,
‘rat’, ‘sat’. It becomes boring after a time. Try putting ‘oat’ in
the series and you will straight away find that it does not fit in.
‘Put’ and ‘but’ do not go together. English has too many foreign
words to follow the phonetic way, eg. Choir, lingerie. Operating the
phonetic way activates only the left brain.
- Arrange for your
child to win. When your child wins, you win. Act positively by
hugging, kissing, praising and motivating your child often. Keep
saying ‘very good’ and ‘wow’. He loves to hear you say ‘wow’,
‘marvelous’, ‘fantastic’.
- Do not
underestimate your child’s learning ability. Teach with no stress.
If you feel stressed, you are not doing it correctly, or may be the
wrong time or place.
- Be flexible amd
creative, always present new arrangements: eg. By telling stories to
your child as both of you progress. Let him make up his stories.
- When you introduce
new words, flash them fast.
- You may want to
present a ‘problem solving’ method by holding up 2 flash cards for
your child to choose the correct one. If your child takes more than
3 seconds, move or wave the card to give it away to him. If your
child right, celebrate! If wrong card is chosen, present the right
card. Remember, this is not a test but an opportunity to learn. He
is still a baby. Love him unconditionally. Do not spend time testing
him. Teach him. You can explain the meanings of the words to your
child. Keep it simple.
- Games that you can
play with:
a)
Place the cards on the floor for your
child to find eg. ‘mother’, ‘uncle’ …. Pass small items like coins, toy
cars, to your child and say , “ give this to ‘mother’, drive your toy
car to ‘uncle’.
b)
Hand over pictures for the child to
match his cards. Eg. ‘dog’, ‘swim’, ‘apple’.
c)
Teach the ‘memory train’ method by
creating stories with flash cards, eg. “One day, a ‘yellow’ bird flew up
a ‘tree’. It was singing because it likes to ‘sing’ and it was dancing
because it likes to ‘dance’. A ‘horse’ was eating ‘grass’ below the
‘tree’. On seeing the ‘bird’, it started to ‘laugh’. And invite your
child to laugh crazy like a ‘horse’.
At what age should I start the flash
card session?
Maths Dots
Card
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For maths dots card,
you can start as early as
4 months pregnancy.
Please refer to
Child Genius Magazine for more info
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The best age to start
the maths dot card is
2-5 months old,
the earlier the better/easier. As this age, the child had yet develop any strong
preference yet... so they can absorb everything... easier and faster.
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If the maths dots card
is introduce after 24 months, it is very difficult to stimulate their right
brain to capture the image of the dots. The children will tend to count how many
dots on the card.
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We strongly recommend
you to read up 'How to teach your baby math'
English/Chinese/Malay Word Card
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The best age to start
the word card is
3-5 months old,
the earlier the better/easier. At this age, the child had yet to develop any
strong preference yet... so they can absorb everything... easier and faster.
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If the word card is
introduce after the child has learn the alphabets, it is very difficult to
stimulate their right brain to capture the image of the word. The children will
tend to read each alphabets, which is the left-brain function.
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We strongly recommend
you to read up 'How to teach your baby to read'
Why the word/dots must be red?
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Red always capture the attention of the children. Studies shown
that babies' eyes perceive Red, Black and White better than any other colour.
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Red is the most prominent color and travel further. (that's why
traffic light is red as the driver can notice the red light from very far away)
· Red will leave the strongest "after image". Look at a object
then close your eyes to visual the object you have just seen, red object is
easier to visualize than any other color
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红色大字使幼儿一目了然，很快便能认到字。
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华文<象形>文字开发右脑<影象记忆>功能，
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并协助提高左脑分析能力，达到<全脑开发>的效果。
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