If you’ve been teaching for a while, chances are you’ve used flashcards for high frequency words.
So did I.
They felt simple, quick, and effective—until I realized how often my struggling readers would “know” a word one day and forget it the next.
The problem wasn’t the flashcards themselves. It was how many words I was asking students to memorize.
When kids rely on visual memory for hundreds of words, there’s only so much their brains can hold. Eventually, they hit a wall—and that’s when they forget a word they "knew" last week.
Flashcards can be a great practice tool, but they shouldn’t be the teaching tool.
When we introduce a high frequency word, students need to first understand three things: 1️⃣ How the sounds connect to the letters. 2️⃣ Which part (if any) is irregular or surprising. 3️⃣ What the word means and how it’s used.
Once we’ve explicitly taught a word, then flashcards are helpful for review and reinforcement. They build retrieval strength—not initial understanding.
Each lesson starts with sound-spelling connections and a meaning focus, followed by real reading practice in either decodable sentences or a decodable passage.
So yes—keep your flashcards. Just use them after kids understand the structure and meaning of the word.
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