How to Use Flash Cards to Help Learn Vocabulary
Whether you are learning a second language or trying to improve in your own, increasing your vocabulary will broaden your use of words. Flash cards are a popular learning tool that can be used for vocabulary enrichment. Make your own to save some money and to enhance the learning process.
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Instructions
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Find new words. Flip through a dictionary, or carry a notepad and pen with you to mark down words you hear that you don't already know.
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Purchase blank business card sheets or card stock you can cut. Create your flash cards using a business card template in a computer word processing program. Put each word on one side of a card and the definition of the word on the other side of the card. An alternative is to write out your cards by hand, which may enhance the learning process. As described in the October 5, 2010 on-line "Wall Street Journal" article "How Handwriting Trains the Brain," a study at Indiana University demonstrated that when children were taught letters and tested with an MRI scan, the ones who wrote the letters by hand showed higher neural activity than those who simply viewed the letters.
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Start using your cards. Create three categories: "active," "pending" and "review." Begin with a moderate number of cards in the active group, such as ten or twenty. Save the rest of your cards in the pending group. The review category is where cards go once you feel you have mastered them.
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Choose a card from your active pile. Read out loud the word on one side of the card, and try to remember its definition. Flip the card over to see if you are correct.
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Use the word in a sentence and try and visualize it. For example if your word is "incessant," which means ceaseless, imagine your dog standing by the backyard door whining incessantly as it is waiting to be let outside. Say your sentence out loud as you imagine the sight of your dog by the door.
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After you have gone through your stack of active cards, shuffle them before you repeat so you are not memorizing words because of their sequence and not because of their meaning.
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Try turning the deck over and reading the definitions first. See if you can remember words from their meanings.
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Repetition is an important part of learning new words. Review your cards repeatedly until the definitions come as an automatic response that you don't have to think about.
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Try word games. Choose three cards at random and see if you can use them in a sentence together.
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Make a small checkmark on each card whenever you successfully remember the definition of the word. Once a card has a specified number of checks, such as ten, put the card in your review pile and replace it with a new card from your pending pile.
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Look through your review pile periodically to make sure you have not forgotten these words.
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Tips & Warnings
Carry some cards with you so that you can review words while you are waiting in lines or places such as doctors' waiting rooms.
Avoid drawing pictures on the cards so that you are not reliant on an image to remember the word meaning.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit dictionary image by Ben Higham from Fotolia.com
