Why flashcards?
The scientifically proven best way to learn is practicing recall by spaced repetition.
You repeat the process of recall in certain time intervals (every day, every weekend etc.), and that’s how information gets stored in your long-term memory. Spaced repetition indicates that it’s better to learn every day for one hour, than one day for five hours.
Spaced repetition
The scientifically proven best way to learn is practicing recall by spaced repetition.
You repeat the process of recall in certain time intervals (every day, every weekend etc.), and that’s how information gets stored in your long-term memory. Spaced repetition indicates that it’s better to learn every day for one hour, than one day for five hours.
How to Remember More of What You Learn with Spaced Repetition. (T.Frank, 2020)
The spacing effect
The spacing effect— spacing learning events apart results in more long term learning than massing them together—is a robust phenomenon that has been demonstrated in hundreds of experiments (Cepeda, Pashler, Vul, Wixted, & Rohrer, 2006; Dempster, 1996; Hintzman, 1974; Glenberg, 1979)
Many of these experiments have used flashcards as a means of testing the spacing effect such as this study by N.Kornall, where using a flashcards over a period of time was the most effective strategy tested for 90% of the participants.
Optimising Learning Using Flashcards: Spacing Is More Effective Than Cramming (N. Kornell, 2009)
Phonics Shed flashcards
• GPC flashcards link to the letter formation rhyme.
• Name of the character
• Single letter characters are used in digraphs and trigraphs for familiarity.
• Two sizes of flashcards
• HFW – bold that cannot sound with the padlock sign to show that it does not follow the usual spelling patterns
Different ways to use flashcards
Recap/ recall prior knowledge. (loud/quiet, high/low voices)
Memory game – flashcards laid out, chn close eyes remove one – which is missing?
Bingo – give pupils a selection of cards to lay in front of them. Teacher to call out a GPC/HFW, child turns card over if they have it. Bingo is called when all cards have been turned over.
Guess who? Flashcard taped to the back of a pupil, go around the classroom ask yes/no questions to guess the GPC character they are.
Word game – child to pick a flashcard, go round in a circle saying words with that GPC in or pick a HFW say a sentence with that HFW in.
Matching phonemes – children given flashcards walk around the class to find another person with a card with the same sound – ‘aw’, ‘au’, ‘or’ (would need a bit of prep from teacher)
Pictionary – class into two teams, one pupil from team A comes to the board, picks a flashcard, and draws the character on the board. The team has 30 seconds to guess—if they can name it, they get a point.
Pass the flashcard – play music pass flashcard around the circle when music stops pupil holding it has to say it out loud (could pass more than 1 around) could also put in a word or sentence.
Flashcard slap – Lay out the cards on the floor or put on the board so the pupils can reach them. Call one or two students up at a time. When you shout out a word/GPC, they should hit it with their hand.
Flashcard whispers – use the flashcards to prompt the GPC/word and pupils whisper the GPC/word around the circle and last pupil writes it on the board – could also do this in teams, first team to write the correct GPC/word wins a point.
Circle drilling – hand one flashcard to a pupil to your left or right, that pupil reads the flashcard then passes it onto the next pupil. You can speed up the drilling by handing more and more cards to the students next to you and then here the chaos of reading of the flashcards.
Flashcards in the classroom: Ten Lesson Ideas (M.Sketchley, 2022)