1. 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.
2. 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!
3. Do not be afraid to teach long words. Long words pose no problems to your child and are in fact interesting and easily recognizable.
4. 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.
5. 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’.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. When you introduce new words, flash them fast.
9. 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.
10. 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’.
