Babies and young children have the unique ability to learn things effortlessly. As parents and educators, we have a responsibility to help our children harness their amazing learning capacity so that they can easily acquire skills that will enable them to excel in the future. One effective way of teaching pre-verbal children is by showing them flash cards. Child brain development specialist Glenn Doman, founder of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, is one of those credited with developing this teaching method for the very young. Flash cards are large cards bearing pictures, words or numbers. That can be physical cards, or virtual ones stored on the computer and shown as a slideshow presentation. Flash cards are ideal for infant stimulation and fascinating to many children, making learning a fun part of everyday play.

Teach Your Baby to Read with Flash Cards. The best time to start teaching your baby to read is between the ages of 4 months and 3 years old. The younger a child is, the more quickly they can learn to read. We recommend starting at 3-4 months old because the child's visual pathway is developed by that time.

Glenn Doman and Makoto Shichida methods - states that you should aim to flash the cards as rapidly as possible. In doing so, the information you present to your child will be absorbed unconsciously by the right hemisphere of her brain. Learning is effortless and extremely rapid. When children are below the age of three and a half, it is very easy for the brain to apprehend information in this way. For older children, it may be necessary to precede the teaching session with a period of relaxation and guided visualization. Such exercises are very effective at activating the right brain through the achievement of the alpha wave state (deeply relaxed yet fully alert and aware), which is very similar to the state achieved during deep meditation.

If used correctly and your toddler/preschooler reacts positively to flashcards the benefits can be fabulous: - Improve cognitive development - Increase awareness of the world around them - Stimulate thinking for themselves - Increase confidence