Our renewed effort with the flashcards lasted for a while before Gavin grew bored again so I decided to modify the program and tailor it to his interest. Here’s what we did…
I went back to the tried and tested favourite topic – Thomas and Friends. I made 20 cards with the names of characters from Thomas and Friends, 10 cards with colours, and 10 cards with emotions. I also introduced to him “is”, “and”, and “are”.
Glenn Doman recommends using cardboard for making the flashcards and he has specific recommendations on card and print size, and on the colour of the text. I, on the other hand, used A4 sheets of paper cut in half length-wise. The marker I used is a permanent, water-based, poster marker in blue ink because it is Gavin’s favourite colour.
We use the flashcards to make sentences with the words, e.g. Harold is white, Thomas and Gordon are blue, etc.
We played with the flashcards twice this week but I think I’m already detecting a waning interest. I’ll try adding new words and see how we go next week.
The intention of this flashcard exercise is to help him learn enough words so that he can read the simple story book I am making for him.
This is the first of a collection of stories in Gavin’s Story Book. So far, it’s only about Thomas, but I was thinking of adding Gavin’s photos and photos of the other family members. Haven’t exactly tested the book yet so I’ll get back to you on the verdict.
Sigh… at this rate it looks like all my “right-brain” teaching materials I bought online are either going to go to waste or they will be reserved for baby no. 2…