Worth Their Weight in Gold

By Michelle Tucker ©2010 Michelle Tucker

     Flash cards, flash cards, flash cards- worth their weight in gold!  Is you child or student not doing well on tests?  Does he have trouble memorizing facts?  Has she struggled with key concepts?  You and/or your child can custom make your own flash cards.

How do I make custom flash cards for my child's need?

     To make flash cards yourself, here are suggested steps:
     1) Identify the key concepts for the skill or subject.  For example, if your child has World History - Early Civilizations, you can look through her current work to find concepts that are repeated and/or appear in the headings.  Looking through her binder/journal or homework, you find:  Sumer, The Sumarians, Cuneiform, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia, Tigris River, Euphrates River and the Fertile Crescent.  Great detective work!
     2) Write these key concepts on one side of the cards.  The easiest way is to use 3x5 Index Cards.  Or, your child can cut some out of paper.
     3) On the back of the card, you or your child (depending on the age of the child), will write the facts/definition.  For example, my daughter make a card for The Sumarians and wrote on the back:

          These people lived in the first civilization named Mesopotamia.
          They had settled in one place and grew crops.  They used
          technology - the wheel.
          2300 BC

Here is a Math example:

Front - Perimeter
    
Back - The length around the polygon.
            2L + 2 W = Perimeter
            (Here would be a picture of a 12 foot by 10 foot rectangular room
             labeled and the perimeter drawn in purple line, purple because it
            and Perimeter both start with P.  For Area, I have
            the students use red and say Apple red color to shade the area).

Here is a Science example:

Front - Igneous

Back - A type of rock in the earth's crust that formed by cooling from and
           original hot, melted condition.  In the Latin the word ignis
           means "fire."
           Examples: Obsidian and Basalt
           (Here would be a two pictures that your child would draw, one of
           the igneous rock examples and one of lava or a volcano, to jog the
           memory).

     Your get the idea.

     4) Is there any thing specific the child needs on that card to help with memorization?  Such as: drawing a picture, using color on the card, or highlighting?

     5) Is there anything that will be on a test or is key to the concept?  Such as: a date, a formula, or a rule?

     Is your child a visual learner?  You'll want her to draw a picture on each flash card.  Is he a kinestetic learner?  He needs to move, so make it a "concentration" type game, where he has to turn over two cards.  You can put the concept cards on the table face down and the definition/fact cards upside down on the floor.  To a kinestetic learner, this arrangement gives him greater space in which to move.  Auditory-verbal learners will learn alright with the traditional method of reading aloud the concept side of a flash card and the back side with the fact/definition again and again until ready.  When ready, the child can look at the concept side and from memory recite the back side.  An idea for a spacial learner could be to write the concept on one card and its fact/definition on a separate card.  While memorizing, the spacial learner needs to see the right match lined up.  Then, when ready, the spacial learner can mix them up, and try to match them in the right order on the table.

     Once your child learns to make his/her own flash cards, the possibilities are endless of the information that could be learned on them.  It's a good investment.  Your child will find need to make flash cards in college.  I needed flashcards to study for the GRE test when applying to graduate school.  For studying almost any concept, flash cards are your child's best friend.

     If you want to get ready made flash cards, here are some resources:
     Check your local stores,  or a teacher supply store.  You can also buy on-line.