Flash Cards: Big Help Or Hinder Learning? By April on Oct 11, 2007 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Flash cards used to help me in school, teaching me quickly what 6 x 6 was or 9 x 8 and so forth. So when I had my own kids, I figured flash cards would help them as well. While the thought behind my purchase was valid, the cards weren't. I opened up the little box to find flimsy cards, hardly durable for the suggested age of 3+. While some of the cards depicted cute trains or deer, most of them were bland, not something to draw attention to for very long. The first small set was to learn how to count animals in or on objects. That allows the child to count up to 12, a feat that needs to be accomplished way before kindergarten, usually within the first couple of weeks of preschool. My three-year-old already knew her numbers up to ten and how to recognize them, so this wasn't much of a help.

The next set was counting, by being able to recognize the numerals one through ten. Again, redundant. Third came colors, which a lot of children are able to learn early on. There were some colors she didn't know, so that helped a bit. Last was shapes. The set only contained five shapes, rectangle, triangle, square, circle and oval, and square was actually spelled wrong (it was squar on the card)! As it stands, RoseArt made a cheap product, which I paid a cheap price for. I am disappointed and will not buy flash cards from them again.