Baby Intelligence

  WHY USE FLASH CARDS?

Babies and young children have the unique ability to learn things effortlessly. As parents and educators, we have a responsibility to help our children harness their amazing learning capacity so that they can easily acquire skills that will enable them to excel in the future.

One effective way of teaching pre-verbal children is by showing them flash cards. Child brain development specialist Glenn Doman, founder of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, is one of those credited with developing this teaching method for the very young.

Flash cards are large cards bearing pictures, words or numbers. That can be physical cards, or virtual ones stored on the computer and shown as a slideshow presentation. Flash cards are ideal for infant stimulation and fascinating to many children, making learning a fun part of everyday play.

You should deliver lessons when your child is in a happy, relaxed frame of mind. Don’t be surprised if she shows enthusiasm for the next session. Flash card presentations are good at capturing children’s attention, and as the two of you go through the cards daily, your child's knowledge and understanding may increase rapidly.

  HOW ARE FLASH CARDS USED?

Here are some points to bear in mind for a successful flash card presentation:

1. Pictures/words/numbers should be large and clear.
2. The presentation should be brief.
3. To encourage enthusiasm, you should aim to stop before your child's interest starts to dwindle.

Also, be sure to enjoy the presentations yourself! If you’re having fun, your child will be that bit happier to participate, even if she is only a few months old. Studies show that infants taught with flash cards develop their senses of sight and hearing faster than other children. As the presentations stimulate your child's brain development, they will unlock her amazing hidden potential!

Rapid learning
Scientific research shows that kids – and especially infants – learn at a surprising speed. BrillBaby recommends that you try delivering each set of flash cards three times per day for about 10 days. However, as you may not actually continue with every set for the full 10 days (see next paragraph), it is a good idea to make a note of the date when you began showing the set, so you can tell easily when (at the latest) it should be retired.

Should interest wane…
The number of times you repeat a set will of course depend on your child. Follow your child's lead and retire any category that he is showing diminished interest in, even if you have spent less than 10 days on it. Regularly adding new cards and making new sets and playlists will also help maintain your child’s enthusiasm for his lessons.

There may even come a time when your child only needs to see a flash card once to learn it. If your child looks away from the presentation during a set that you have not been learning for long, do not fret. The most likely explanation is that your little one has a very good memory!

  Why should I teach my baby at such an early age?

Studies have shown that it is much easier to acquire language skills early in life than at any other time. Very young children naturally learn language simply through continuous exposure. Young children can learn two languages from birth just as easily as they can learn one. It is our belief that children can likewise acquire the ability to read – in more than one language – simply through consistent exposure to the written word. And unlike at school-age, when learning to read can prove a headache for many children, learning to read as a baby is as natural and effortless as learning to speak one's native language.

Since reading is one of the most important skills a child will ever learn, we would encourage parents to begin teaching their baby to read from the age of four months, or as early as possible. Children who develop their language skills – and particularly, the ability to read – before starting school have higher self-esteem than their peers. These children are also more likely to enjoy school-based learning, as they have been equipped with the right basic tools early in life. For more on teaching reading to babies, and to see videos of babies reading, click here.

You can also begin teaching your baby math from the age of four months, and if you do so, you will have the opportunity to give your child an intuitive understanding of this core subject. This is because – up to the age of three and a half – small children perceive the world largely through the dominant right hemisphere of their brain (the left hemisphere becomes increasingly dominant thereafter). Small children can perceive the number of dots on a flash card without counting them, just as some savants can. This gives children the ability to truly understand, say, what 48 is versus 49. By retaining this ability to perceive quantity, even after their left brain begins to assume dominance, children can perform seemingly complex mathematical equations without a calculator. (For the rest of us though, numbers will have to remain abstract concepts, with a calculator almost certainly required for tasks such as multiplying two three-digit figures.) For more on teaching babies math, click here.

You would also not want to neglect your baby’s artistic education – and where better to begin than with music? All babies naturally enjoy rhythm and melody – even before birth (just ask any mother who’s felt her baby kick to certain tunes). What you may not know, however, is that it’s possible to teach your child to have perfect pitch, provided you start early enough (sorry, but just like with right-brain math, we adults are too old to learn!). Learning music is a lot like learning languages – it’s a whole lot easier when you start young. And the sheer act of learning a musical instrument has profound sculpting effects on the brain. Musicians have been shown to have a larger than average corpus callosum (a fiber bundle that connects the brain’s left and right hemispheres) – believed to produce enhanced synchronization between the two halves of the brain. What’s more, brain regions responsible for movement planning and execution, as well as regions responsible for hearing, have been found to be larger in musicians than non-musicians. For more on teaching your baby music, click here.

  HOW FAST SHOULD I SHOW THE FLASH CARDS?

There are two schools of thought on this. The first – which aligns with the Glenn Doman and Makoto Shichida methods – states that you should aim to flash the cards as rapidly as possible. In doing so, the information you present to your child will be absorbed unconsciously by the right hemisphere of her brain. Learning is effortless and extremely rapid. When children are below the age of three and a half, it is very easy for the brain to apprehend information in this way. For older children, it may be necessary to precede the teaching session with a period of relaxation and guided visualization. Such exercises are very effective at activating the right brain through the achievement of the alpha wave state (deeply relaxed yet fully alert and aware), which is very similar to the state achieved during deep meditation. For more on right-brain teaching, click here.

The second way of showing flash cards is to use the multi-sensory method. The philosophy here is that it is easier for children to absorb and retain new information when they receive that information through several sensory channels. This means that rather than simply reading aloud a word to your child (as you flash that word card), you would read aloud the word and follow the word card with a picture card representing the meaning of the word. Software programs such as Little Reader contain recordings of words to be taught, plus sound effects – e.g. the sound of an elephant trumpeting to go with the word “elephant.” Another advantage to this technique is that it teaches children the meanings of words, rather than simply their pronunciations.

Multi-sensory learning is also considered a right-brain teaching technique, because it works partly on an unconscious level. Multi-sensory teaching has been known to be extremely beneficial for children who do not respond well to traditional, left-brain teaching. Besides the visual and auditory modes of stimulation, multi-sensory learning also encompasses the kinesthetic – that is, moving your child’s body to model the meaning of a word, or encouraging him to do so, when he is old enough to move by himself. So, for example, you might raise your child’s arms in the air, or both of you might raise your arms in the air while reading the words “Arms up!”