• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • Write For Us
  • Children
  • Education
  • Pets
  • DIY/Home
  • Wellness
  • Fashion
  • Travel
  • Finance
  • Tech

ABC At Home

Homeschooling Mommy Entrepreneur

How To Use Flash Cards To Improve Your Study Time

April 25, 2018 by Lauren Palmer

Making language flash cards for fundamental words; apple, lemon, peach, melon, grape and orange.

Making the most of your time while studying is essential to making good grades. Here’s how to use flash cards to improve your study time and improve grades.

The words “flash cards” conjure up images from our school years. You imagine index cards lying all over the floor or bed as you cram massive amounts of information into your head.

Maybe you remember them as boring or tedious. Or perhaps they never really worked for you.

Yet students of all ages have used them since the beginning of time.

They continue to do so today. Why? Because flash cards are, in fact, an effective way to learn and retain information.

Used correctly, they can aid your studies. This is true whether your subject matter is science-related, a new language, or any other field.

Let’s go over the ways flash cards can improve your study time. Read on!

How To Study with Flash Cards

They may be one of the most popular ways of studying, but they are often used incorrectly. We know this because researchers have scrutinized the ways students study with them. In the next few sections, let’s look at some of their findings.

Keep Them Simple

It is tempting to group like information onto a single card. For example, when learning a new language, many people put all seven days of the week onto the back of one card. This makes for less work, and why does it matter anyway?

Placing lots of information onto one card, though, guarantees you won’t learn all of it. In the example above, your ability to remember each day’s name is different. Placing them in a group ensures one or two won’t make it into your long-term memory.

Instead, make sure you have one idea or word per card.

Colors, Pictures, and Mnemonic Devices

Employing color makes memorization easier. Not only does it fight off boredom, but it also enhances meaning.

For example, when learning a foreign language, you can write all feminine nouns in pink and masculine nouns in blue.

Pictures can also be added to your cards. A mixture of words and images works much better than words alone. You can either draw them yourself or use a free flash card maker for a more polished look.

Finally, mnemonic devices are wonderful tools that aid memorization. Many of us remember these from our school days. The most famous one is ROYGBIV, which gives us the colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet).

But there are many others. It isn’t hard to find some that will work for you.

Spacing and Stack Size

Growing up, many of us took our flash cards and divided them into small groups. We would make the groups larger over time, all the while removing cards we had mastered.

Studies show, however, that this method is completely counterproductive.

The best way to study with cards to is to take a large group of cards, go through all the cards, and then revisit the entire pile another time.

It turns out that the most important part of studying is spacing out study sessions. A large stack of cards ensures more time will pass between study sessions, and it is this time that helps you remember the information on your cards.

This free time can be used to relax. You could also enjoy another restorative activity (preferably one that doesn’t involve electronic devices).

When you return to your cards, your brain will be refreshed and ready to go.

Fun and Effective

If you are studying a new subject or learning a new language, study cards might be just what you are looking for. They can even be enjoyable, especially with pictures and bright colors.

Why not give them a try today and see how they work for you?

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: education, flash cards, language, learning

Primary Sidebar

Follow us

  • facebook
  • twitter

Should You Leave a Humidifier on All Night for Baby?

Domestic Cleaning Tips – Cleaning Your Fridge

The Importance of Building Your Family Home

Footer

Recent Posts

  • Should You Leave a Humidifier on All Night for Baby?
  • Domestic Cleaning Tips – Cleaning Your Fridge
  • The Importance of Building Your Family Home
  • 3 DIY Home Projects You Can Do With Your Kids
  • 3 Picture Day Outfit Ideas for Little Girls

Tags

auto business career children company destinations DIY education entrepreneurship Europe family fashion finance fitness garden health health and wellness holiday home home improvements house interior design internet investing job kids learning marketing money parenting pet pets profession property real estate student study style tech technology trading travel vacation wellness yard

About Us

Welcome to ABC at Home! The woman/parenting/homeschooling/entrepreneur resource brought to you by a busy, but efficient mother! I write articles about travel, business, finance and many more subjects for stay-at-home parents (yes, that includes men too) so that our kids can thrive as much as we do.