They serve as both pictorial and verbal reminders for the same information – teachers call it dual-coding. And this double method can enhance junior’s ability to recognize new words more easily, says Trevor Xu, senior curriculum manager at Stamford Education.

Flashcards are especially useful for smaller children, but learners of almost any age can benefit from the constant visual help of flashcards – it can help children learn vocabulary words, introduce language rules, sentence constructions, you name it.

You can make life easier with flashcard apps. Most offer a free and a paid version. AnkiApp is compatible with Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and supports text, images, and sounds. Or try Quizlet Flashcards or  Pleco Chinese Dictionary.

As most storybooks targeted at preschoolers consist of basic words and simplified content, your child remembers only superficial concepts. Even sophisticated primary school readers tend to focus on books that interest them – so if your daughter is mad about mermaids, she’ll tend to read books on mermaids and ignore most everything else. It’s normal, but such a narrow range of input won’t help her communicate well when she writes compositions.

To inculcate meaningful understanding, read about world affairs and discuss them together. This helps your child grasp the relevance of real-world events.

Keeping the content open-ended not only enhances memory capabilities but also stimulates their diverse interests, says Trevor.

For smaller children, try encouraging them to practice mental imaging. When you travel around town, aim to associate meaningful content with each landmark. Try to add new landmarks every day. For example, you can say, “Oh look, that’s the park where we met the man with the dog you liked.” or “That’s the road that leads to the beach.”

When your child grows familiar with these landmarks, challenge them to suggest a new route using the information they have remembered. This skill of mental imaging not only stimulates their ability to remember locations, it also helps them understand time, distance, and spatial relationships.

Your child may say ‘I will remember without writing it down,’  but they probably won’t.

If you write something down, you have to engage different parts of your brain, and this forces your brain to process information in a detailed way. In turn, this helps you to successfully load that information into your memory.

As parents, you can tutor your child in how to take useful memory notes, says Rum Tan at SmileTutor. Teach them how to jot down key points to help jog their memory later in the day. They can jot notes in a book, on their tablet – as long as they’re easy to access again.

Say the topic is ‘Verbs’. The teacher says ‘a verb is an action word or doing word’. The student’s notes will look something like this:
Verbs = Action or doing word.

They don’t have to write down every word. Just the key points so they can remember what they learned.

Article first published by Young Parents.  Updated March 2022

Read Next

How To Motivate Your Child To Study, According To Experts

4 Bilingual Preschools In Singapore To Strengthen Your Child's Mandarin Proficiency

6 Considerations Before Choosing An Enrichment Class For Babies And Toddlers