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What are Flashcards?
Flashcards are a rudimentary tool for educating. They consist of cards made of thick cardboard or cardstock wherein pictures, numbers, symbols, or words are printed on one or both sides. Learning with flashcards is often attributed to the education of toddlers as they are easy medium of instruction due to their childish appeal.
However, children are not the only demographic wherein flashcards can be effectively used. They can also be used for educating intermediate students. Take those who are studying foreign languages like Japanese or Russian. Since Japanese and Russian have their own alphabet, flashcards can be used for students to showcase a character and their corresponding sound or pronunciation. Learning from flashcards allow students to easily remember a character and associate it with specific sounds.
Aside from learning characters from foreign languages, flashcards can also be used for recreational purposes because they are easy to handle and are often novel in nature. Many household games and pastimes include the use of flashcards. Not only a recreational tool, flashcards have also been said to increase one’s memory retention, which is also known as active recall. This is usually done by the use of a two-sided flashcard with the question or problem on the obverse, and the solution on the reverse. Upon flashing the card with the query to the subject, the subject then gives the answer. They may or may not be timed according to the difficulty of the exercise.
An advantageous quality of flashcards are their versatility as printed media. They can contain almost any question and answer imaginable—from riddles, quotes, mathematical equations, and brain twisters. Flashcards with poems or quotes for example can be used as aides in memorization with this simple process: A flashcard with the title of a certain of poem or quote (memorized an hour or a day prior to the test) is flashed before a subject, and they will have to recite from memory the respective pre-memorized line of the given title. This can also be done in reverse, simply by stating the correct title to a given quote or line.
The versatility of learning with flashcards doesn’t end there. Now there are virtual flashcards which can be used with the ease of a computer.
How to Work With Flashcards
Flashcards are easy instruments of instruction which consist of thick matte or glossy cards printed with words, pictures, characters, symbols, or mathematical equations. It is commonly associated with pre-schoolers and toddlers as it is most often featured in their instruction. But flashcards can also be used for educating students of many other levels, as well as for recreational purposes.
Working with flashcards is easy. It takes no more than your hand and an audience for you to start using your flashcards as educational and entertainment tool. Children and adults are readily attracted to them due to their usual colorful and singular images. By using a few or only one image, flashcards help students, young and old, to focus on a particular subject.
Subjects that involve the use of characters and figures in lieu of letters also work best when taught with the help of flashcards. Languages such as Chinese or Japanese, which use characters instead of letters, are effectively learned with the use of double-sided flashcards. The teacher can stand before a class, flash one card that shows a character, and let the students read it or give its meaning. This game can also be performed with individual students with greater effect.
Double-sided flashcards can be effectively used in timed tests, especially if working with flashcards of mathematical nature. Students can be timed in providing answers to flashed problems. This gives students with more mental stimuli. Because images are flashed, students work up their focus to catch them. The mode in which flashcards is used alerts students to changes in the environment and moves them to focus, thus improving their mental recall.
Mental games, puzzles, and brain-twisters are also wonderfully learnt and recalled with the use of flashcards, since they easily give a pre-drawn out problem that is shown rather than described in words. Furthermore, a wide variety of flashcards make learning more interesting. If you are looking for interesting ones, you can search online. There are a lot of flashcards available for different purposes and audiences that you can download and print. Just be sure to use paper boards. You can laminate your printed flashcards to make them more durable.
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