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You Are Never Too Old (or too young) To Use Flashcards

Schools are now working hard to re-introduce the lost art of "studying." From grade school on up, studying is the lesson that is never taught---and it shows. Students today, of all ages, do not have the skills they need to help them to learn new material. Teachers tell their students "Study this for the test" and parents tell their kids to "Go do your homework." But what they don't tell them is how.

Here's an idea that has been lost for too long: Make study flashcards. Flashcards are pretty low-tech, but it is undeniable just how effective they can be.

A "study flashcard" is a card (any size from business card, to 3 x 5 index card, to 4 x 6 index card) that has something printed on both sides of the card. Typically, one side of the card is the "question" and the other side is the "answer": for example one side of a flashcard has the word "ball" on it, and the other side of the card has a picture of a colorful beach ball. When you "flash" the word ball, the response would be for a child to say the word ball. If the child doesn't know what b-a-l-l spells, then he or she can look at the other side of the card to see the picture of the ball as a prompt to say ball.

This, then, is the essence of using flashcards as a study tool. You can readily purchase flashcards for pre-schoolers, kindergarteners, and 1st graders that cover the ABCs, colors, shapes, and even some math in stores like Target, Wal*Mart, and Kmart. After that, you can search the web for places to purchase flashcards on anything from algebra to zoology. However, these cards are usually pre-printed and are based on what some company or publisher has determined should go on a flashcard.

This is all well and good---but you might not be able to find flashcards that cover your 6th grade son's American History chapter that deals with the important dates of the Civil War. You can make your own---for pennies. And this will be an opportunity to participate interactively with your child by turning study time into fun time!

Flashcards don't have to be, well---flashy. Buy simple white index cards, ruled or unruled, and buy some colored markers (or buy colored cards and get a black Sharpie pen). If you are planning to use flashcards for a variety of subjects, you can assign one color to a particular subject: math is green, history is blue, science is red.

Sit down with your student and his/her schoolbook. If your student is old enough to have notes, then have the notes handy, including other handouts or assignment sheets given out by the teacher. Using the text, notes, and handouts, start skimming through the text. When you come to something important, interesting, or unusual, make a flash card. Remember that one side is the "question" and the other side is the "answer." You can either write actual questions, or you can just write a phrase or a keyword that will prompt the answer. Then, on the other side, write the appropriate answer.

Using the Civil War as an example, one side of a flashcard could be "Battle of Gettysburg." The other side could be "July 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania." Of course, the answer side could be anything pertinent to the battle at Gettysburg that is being studied. When you hold up, or "flash," the card for your son, show him the side that has "Battle of Gettysburg" on it. He should tell you "July 1863" or "Gettysburg, Pennsylvania," or both. If he has some trouble remembering the answer, you can prompt him by asking "What was the date? It was in the summertime? It was after 1862. Where was the battle fought? What state? The state is north of Virginia." All of these prompts should help him to remember the answer. After seeing that card half a dozen times, he will remember what both sides say, without hesitation. At test time, when he sees anything about Gettysburg on the test, he'll remember everything that you and he talked about while going through the flashcards.

Flashcards can be as "easy" or as "hard" as they need to be, depending on the age of the student and the material being studied. My husband, as a perfect example, attended college to become a Certified Surgical Technologist when he was in his 30s. Every night, he would create flashcards from his notes from the section of textbook being studied. After making the flashcards, he'd jumble them in a bowl. For the next hour or so, I'd pull flashcards out of the bowl, showing him one side or the other, at random. On the weekends, we would combine all the cards he'd made to date, and go through them, one by one. Near the end of the entire course, we figured that we had over 5,000 cards and they were in a very big box.

Before he took his final exam, we both attended a pre-exam classroom session during which a sample final exam was administered as a self-help tool. Not only did he pass with an A, but also I passed by earning a C. That's just how effective those flashcards were. Just what little was written on those cards, and the time we spent together reviewing them, was enough to "teach" me enough to pass the final exam---and I never spent a single day in class or read one word of his textbooks.

However, this doesn't mean that flashcards are only the stuff of "hard college courses." Flashcards can be 1+1= on one side and 2 on the other side. It can be "George Washington" on one side and "First President" on the other side.

Regardless of how you use them, or at what grade level, you can use flashcards to help you learn anything. If you can manage to introduce a little humor or creativity either into the cards or as you read the cards, you'll learn those cards such that you remember them forever. I still remember the series of cards that my husband made when he was learning the names for different types of surgeries. For the "oophorectomy" card, we would say "ooooooOOoooooophorectomy" in a spooky voice. I remember forever what it is (the surgical removal of one or both ovaries), and also know how to spell it!

Let's face---our kids today just don't study. We pass them through grade school and high school because we have this idea that if we don't pass them with the group of their peers, they will be psychologically disadvantaged. By the time they reach college, however, they are ill-prepared to deal with the barrage of course material they will have to learn.

Put some fun back into learning. Take the drudgery out of it by becoming involved with your student. Study time can become quality time...and don't be surprised where the conversations (or interests) may go while rummaging through a Tupperware bowl full of flashcards about history, or biology, or just plain old spelling and vocabulary.

If you are an adult and faced with heading back to school to get your graduate or post-graduate degree so that you can compete in today's workplace, then think of flashcards as the easiest, most portable method of learning the most amount of information in the least amount of time.

Flashcards are very low-tech, but they can be pretty high-impact when it comes to learning.

Jan K., The Proofer is freelance proofreader and copyeditor. Visit http://www.jansportal.com for more information about Jan’s proofreading and copyediting services and Jan's other free resources. Please visit Mom's Break (http://www.momsbreak.com/) for free printable crafts and projects. © Copyright 2005. All rights reserved.