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Creative Ways to Use Flash Cards for Spelling

How to Use Flash Cards for Spelling

Creative Ways to Use Flash Cards for Spelling

Flash cards may be a standard way to learn spelling words, but there are a few ways to make them a little less boring. There are two basic ways in which your child can approach making flash cards, both of which have learning benefits.

Skills Being Practiced

• Sight/spelling word recognition
• Vocabulary retention
• General word knowledge

What You Need

• Index cards or cardstock
• Pencil
• Set of markers
• Pen
• Computer with Comic Sans 12-point font

How to Play: Handwritten Flash Cards

1. Give your child index cards, a pencil, and his list of spelling words. Ask him to write one spelling word apiece on an index card.
2. This will help him recognize the words in his own handwriting and help him to start forming a visual memory of how each word looks when he writes it. This is important because when it comes time for him to write, either creatively or for a school assignment, he'll know what the word looks like in handwriting instead of just when it is typed.

How to Play: Computer Flash Cards

1. Just as seeing spelling words written in handwriting can be beneficial, so can seeing them in print. That's because your child isn't just learning his spelling words to use in writing; he's also learning them so he can understand them in the context of stories or other text he's reading.
2. The words may look very different in type than they do in his handwriting, so set your child up on the computer, set the font to Comic Sans 12 point (this is the font that many teachers agree most resembles handwriting), and have him type each word on its own row.
3. Print the document on cardstock and have him cut the words apart into makeshift flash cards.

More Flash Card Activities

How to Play: Definition Flash Cards

1. Create a set of flash cards, either on the computer or on index cards, but instead of writing the words this time, have your child write the definition of the word and a sentence in which he uses the word correctly.
2. Remind your child that a word's definition cannot use the word or any variation of that word to help define it. It's hard to do, so you may need to have a dictionary on hand.
3. Mark the back of these cards with a small colored dot or an X, so they can be used in Spelling Word Memory.

How to Play: Spelling Word Memory

1. Use one set each of the word flash cards and the definition flash cards to do this activity. Shuffle the two sets of cards together and place them facedown in rows on a table or on the floor.
2. The first player turns over two cards, one marked and one not. If theword on the nonmarked card and the definition on the marked cardmatch, the player keeps the cards. If not, he turns them facedown again.
3. The next player takes a turn, keeping in mind the position and what was written on the cards that were previously turned over.
4. Once all the words and definitions have been matched up, the player with the most matches wins.

How to Play: Flash Card Tracing

This is a variation on the classic "writing your words ten times apiece" activity. Tracing his spelling words over and over with a pencil, crayons, or felt-tip markers helps him to retain the shape of the letters as well as the order in which they go.

Extend the Learning

Have your child trace the words with brightly colored markers to make the card a little more attractive. When he's done with that, have him write his word on the back of the card, then flip it over to compare. By now he should be able to write it correctly without even thinking about it!