Should I Use Flashcards to Help My Toddler Talk? The Dos and Don’ts
You want your baby or toddler to start talking, so flashcards are the logical activity of choice, right? Not really. While many companies market flashcards as the way to get your baby talking, they’re not my first choice as a pediatric speech-language pathologist. Babies and toddlers learn through fun and natural language exposure, they’re not college kids studying for an exam! That being said, some babies actually like looking at flashcards, so if that’s the case with your little one, here are some tips on how to best use flashcards to help your toddler’s language development.
These touch-and-feel flashcards with clear photographs of objects are my go-to when I do use flashcards with babies and toddlers!
What NOT to do with flashcards to get your toddler talking:
❌ Quiz your child
❌Repeatedly ask, “What’s this?”
❌Only asking questions (e.g. “What color is this?” “What does the ___ say?”
❌Never modeling the answers to questions you want them to be able to answer
❌Never pausing or giving your child an opportunity to respond
❌Being too serious or not engaging
It’s a common misconception that asking questions is the best way to get your baby or toddler to talk… but actually if we only ask questions and never model the answers for them to naturally learn, then they are going to continue having difficulty answering the questions! It is also very frustrating for children to repeatedly be asked questions that they are not able to answer, and often causes them to shut down. Parents think “flashcards,” and they assume they should be used to drill words. Like I said before, babies and toddlers don’t need to “study” to learn words, they need engaging and natural interactions where words are repeated in context.
What TO do with flashcards to get your toddler talking:
✅Smile and have fun
By smiling we are automatically being more engaging and drawing our babies interest in. Babies and toddlers learn best when something is fun!
✅Talk about the pictures
For example, if it’s a picture of a dog, you could say, “I see a soft brown doggy! The dog is sitting. The dog has furry ears and a black nose.”
✅Interact with the pictures
Using the dog example again, you could say, “Let’s pet the dog” and show your baby how you pet the dog and see if they’ll copy you! You could also pretend to feed the dog, or throw a pretend ball for the dog.
✅Use descriptive words
Use adjectives like soft, shiny, big, small, colors, round, tall, long, fuzzy, etc.
✅Model words repeatedly
Children need to hear words repeated over and over again in context to first understand them before eventually adding the word to their expressive vocabulary. Repeating the word over and over again gives your baby many opportunities to start learning the word. For example, “The car is driving, beep beep car, it’s a red car, drive car, open the car door, byebye car.”
✅Relate to personal experiences
Talk about something in your toddler’s life that relates to the picture! For example, “You have a brown dog too! Your dog’s name is Penny,” or, “We drive in the car to go to school! When we go in the car we buckle your carseat,” “Mommy drives you in the car,” “Our car is blue, this car is red.”
✅Relate the pictures to the real objects
Did you know it’s three separate developmental skills for a child to be able to identify a real life object, versus a photograph of an object, versus a picture of an object? If the real object is accessible, show your toddler the picture and the real object. You can even use the flashcards for a scavenger hunt. For example, “Look here’s a banana! Let’s go find the banana in our house, hmm I think the banana is in the kitchen! Let’s go look in the kitchen for the banana. Here is the banana!”
✅Use the cards for pretend play
Using the flashcards for pretend play makes them much more engaging than simply looking at the picture. The more engaging, the more likely learning is happening! For example, pretend to fly an airplane flashcard in the air, or drive the car flashcard around.
✅Model functional words
Instead of just focusing on your child learning the name of the object in the picture, model functional words, like on, in, up, down, open, stop, go, hi, and bye.
✅Model words, phrases, and sentences
Model a variety of single words, 2-3 word phrases, and complete sentences. This not only helps with repeating words, but also helps your baby tune into the key words which helps their receptive and expressive language. For example, “Car, red car, fast red car, The fast red car is driving!”
✅Make sound effects
Did you know babies often imitate sound effects before they imitate real words? That’s why it’s important to model sound effects, as well! This includes animal sounds (e.g. moo, woof, meow), vehicle sound effects (e.g. beep beep, wee-oo-wee-oo for a siren, raspberry sound for a motor, vroom), and other environmental sounds (e.g. snoring, shhh, weee, brrrr cold).
In Summary…
Many parents have gotten the idea that flashcards are the way to get your baby or toddler talking (or even to make them a “genius” - hello marketing!), but the reality is, using flashcards in a “traditional” wya (i.e. quizzing, drilling, and pressuring them to perform) with your baby or toddler is not ideal for learning. Flashcards are not my top pick for a language toy for babies and toddlers, but some babies do like them! If you are going to use them, make sure to use these strategies on the “dos” list to actually increase your baby’s language skills and get them talking!
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This website and information on this blog post is provided for educational purposes only. It is not meant as medical advice, intended to replace a speech-language assessment, therapy from a speech-language pathologist, or serve as medical care for a child. It is recommended that you discuss any concerns or questions you might have with your speech-language pathologist, pediatrician, and medical team, and develop an individualized team plan specifically for your child.