How to do home practice effectively? (in my humble opinion)
1. Create a FUN setting! A child learns best when he or she is having fun! So do not make the session stressful for the child, because the child can feel it and that will impede the learning process.
2. Practise, Practise, Practise before you start flashing to your child. My husband and I spent many nights practising on the speed before we started flashing to our daughter. More haste less speed. To achieve the purpose of flashcards, we will have to flash each card in less than 1 second.
3. For a start, begin with 50-100 cards and gradually increase the number of cards when you think your child is ready for more. You can flash in 2 sessions a day, but we are currently flashing 300 cards in 1 session.
4. Include flashcards in your child's daily routine. Choose a time most suitable to do flashcards and include it in your child's routine so that it becomes part of it. For us (without fail), we will do flashcards after our daughter's nap and lunch (to ensure that she is well rested and full!) and she knows because it is part of her routine now. Each session only lasts 10-15 minutes : )
5. Have a cosy little corner to do flashcards. It really helps when there's no distraction so that the child and the parent can focus during the 10-15 minutes so a nice little cosy corner with no distraction will be ideal : )
6. Do not repeat the same topic twice a day. Have new topics constantly to arouse their interest, so we did about 100 topics in a month (about 2-3 new topics a day)
Lastly, the core of learning and education is LOVE. Flashcards can only do this much : )
