Flash Cards and Simple Books
One of the things we do with Lily is to select simple books that have the same words repeated throughout the book. As I’ve posted about before, I first make flashcards from all the words in the book. I put the word on both sides of the card, using a different font on each side. Not only does this make it easier to flash the cards, but it also helps her recognize the same word can look slightly different.
If we already have a flash card for any particular word I don’t make a new one, but depending on how long ago we reviewed it, I may pull it out of the box to include in the stack. For any new words, I make a flash card for each version of the word found in the book. I fast flash the cards for 3-4 sessions, with a session being 1 minute of rapid flashing of the cards as many times as I can, and then we read the book. I point to the word and if she doesn’t read it I read it and encourage her to repeat. She picked up the concept pretty quickly though, and I don’t have to prompt her much anymore.
I really like this set of books: Learn to Read with Tug the Pup and Friends! Box Set 1. They are short and simple and have a lot of repeated words. In the early books, the words are on one page and the illustration on the next, so you can fold the book in half and show just the text if your child is getting distracted by the pictures.
I’ve created a PDF file in flash card format for each of the 11 books in the set. To make flash cards, simply print the document on letter size paper, fold in half, and laminate!
Printed, ready to laminate
For each book there is a PDF containing every word in the book. As the books progress, some of the words are repeated. This means if you make flash cards for each book you won’t necessarily want to print every page in every PDF, but I decided to do it this way so that each PDF could stand alone. I also created a separate PDF with all of the words in the entire set, with no duplicates. Head on over to my flash card shop to download the freebie to make your own flash cards to use with these books!
2 Comments
Maria
This is great but how to “force” the child to look at the cards? My child, 4years, does not want to look at them! Yesterday he even closed his eyes! I reallydo not know what to do.
And how do you do the work with the book? We have a book but my child does not read it so I do this. Is this ok so? And how often should I change the books? I have the feeling that it gets boring but on the other hand the real reading is also missing.
Thank you!
mshutterbug
Maria – I think the keys are to keep it really exciting and really brief. If Lily is showing disinterest at the start I will move the cards around… like put one up high so she has to look up, move the next card to the side, then the other side. Even let her touch them. And use a really excited tone of voice. And, go FAST! Just make sure that the word you are saying is the word he is seeing. You should be showing each card for only long enough to say the word. It will seem way too fast, but it’s getting in. I personally think that the cards with word on one side and photo on the other are much more engaging to begin. I wouldn’t start with books until he has a solid base of words he sight reads. Definitely read books to him, lots and lots of books, but don’t try to get him to read books himself until he is showing interest and gaining sight words. Just my opinion though, as I’m not trained in any of this 🙂