How to Teach Your Child to Read With Cue Cards

Cue cards, also called flash cards, are a popular and often successful way of helping your child to read. The cue cards can be made at home, and will help your child to grasp how words look are sound. This allows your child to improve his reading ability while having fun and not feeling pressured, and the method can be used through different reading levels until your child can read completely unaided.

• 1

  Find pictures that interest your child. Look through magazines or print pictures from the computer. The pictures should be brightly colored and interesting.

• 2

  Cut out the images carefully.

• 3

  Glue the images onto plain cards.

• 4

  Write the words for the images on the other side. Ensure your writing is clear and readable.

• 5

  Lay the cards out on the floor with the word side up. Ask your child to guess what the card is. Encourage her to try to read the word, rather than just making a guess. Offer a reward if your child can get five right, then ten right, then all of them right.

• 6

  Flip through the cards once a day, showing the child the side with the word and asking them to read it. If the word is right, the child gets to hold the card. If it is wrong, help him read the word, and add it back to your pile. The person with the most cards at the end is the winner.

• 7

  Make sentences using the cards. This can help the child to read full sentences and create their own. Take turns making a sentence for your child to read, then having your child make a sentence for you to read.