Word cards for babies

This resource has been a long time in the making, and I’m so thrilled that it’s finally finished!

Inspired by Glenn Doman’s How to Teach Your Baby to Read, these printable word and picture cards contain ten new words each week to introduce to your baby from the time they are ten weeks old all the way up until their first birthday. That’s a total of 420 words!

The words I chose include family names, items of clothing, body parts, foods, household items, toys, vehicles, animals, colors, shapes, nature words, emotions, actions, opposites, and more.

Here is the complete list and the schedule of when to introduce them. Note that “Week 10” = 10 weeks of age.

Surprisingly, up until now nothing like this even existed that I knew of, either paid or free.

It seemed that most baby reading materials were digital (computer programs or videos), which is a bummer for parents who want to avoid screens, as well as for parents who simply prefer the experience of having physical cards in their hands.

Click here to download and view printable word and picture cards.

Questions:

Q: Why are your words smaller than Doman recommends?

A: In the book, Doman recommends word cards that are a whopping twenty-two inches long! That’s insane! I’ve found that such a recommendation is completely unnecessary: babies do need big font, but not that big.

Word cards that size require you to buy expensive poster board, cut it out by hand, write out the words by hand, are too big to laminate, and are awkward to use and difficult to store. I still can’t figure out the reasoning behind that recommendation! So I opt for a size that is perfectly visible to even small babies but also cheap, convenient, and user friendly.

Q: Why did you use black ink instead of red?

A: Red is a nice little “perk” for getting babies interested, but black works best for this smaller font size because it is easier to see.

Q: Why do you have pictures on the back of your cards?

A: Doman doesn’t say anything about using pictures in the reading program, but I find that pictures are a nice, fun addition. They make looking at the cards more interesting, and for very young babies who don’t know the meaning of the words yet, they are in some ways essential to teach the meaning behind the words.

Q: How do I print double sided?

A: Each printer is different, but in general you will print the words first, then put the page with the printed words back into the printer, but upside down, to print out the pictures on the opposite side. There are many tutorials available online for various printers.

Q: My baby is older. Can I still use them?

A: Of course! Starting at ten weeks old is for parents who are doing the Doman newborn program. But these words can be started with any age baby, as well as toddlers. They’re great for exposure to written language, sight reading, and vocabulary building!

Q: How do you show the cards?

A: There’s really no one “right” way to expose your child to written language. Some options:

• You can flash them quickly in traditional flash card style.
• You can show them more slowly, talking about them, running your finger under the words.
• You can use binder rings to make them into a “book” (this is what I do).
• You can hang them on the wall and point to them as you walk past them.
• You can play games with them.
• Or anything else you can think of!

Any other questions?

We love using flashcards in our toy rotation – the ones included in the Lovevery “The Inspector” play kit are a family favorite. They’re durable, they’re contained in a small box, and they have texture to keep baby fascinated.

That said, Lovevery play kits aren’t cheap, and if you’re only interested in the flashcards, it’s not worth spending $80 on the kit.

We’ve developed a Lovevery dupe for the “Things I See” texture cards, and while laminating these flashcards at home won’t give you the texture or thickness of the Lovevery counterparts, it’ll be a lot cheaper.

Be sure to download our first word flashcards for 6-9 months. The printable features 24 different flashcards with first words like cat, baby, sun, cup, hat, milk, and more.

It’s a PDF, and you can download, print, and laminate it for lots of family fun!

When can I start using flashcards with my baby?

Honestly, it’s never too soon to start using flashcards with your baby. From 0-3 months old, your baby can benefit from infant stimulation flashcards – these are black and white flash cards that encourage child development.

Our babies loved looking at high-contrast images when they were newborns, and as they started tummy time, it helped them stay on their tummies longer before getting frustrated.

Around 6-8 months old is an ideal time to introduce first words flashcards with images of everyday objects. For example, a photo of a baby with the word “baby” on the flashcard is perfect for this age.

Showing your baby the flashcards is meant to stimulate their brain and familiarize them with the world around them. 

What are the disadvantages of using flashcards with babies?

The main disadvantage of using flashcards is memorization. Some believe that flashcards encourage children to memorize the images and words instead of conceptualizing them.

While this may have some truth for older children, it’s just not the case with babies. These first words flashcards are meant to introduce baby to everyday objects while encouraging bonding time with mom and dad.

How do you use flashcards for babies?

We’ve used flashcards with our babies in several different ways. You can set out the flashcards in front of your baby and watch them interact with them. My son would pick them up, study the image, and move on to the next one. It’s a great independent exercise, especially if you need to get some cooking or cleaning done.

You can also make it a more interactive activity by holding up a flashcard, saying the name of the object, and watching your baby’s reaction.

It’s an excellent way to spend time with your baby, and it introduces familiar objects and words. Experts say babies need to be talked to constantly – young children need to hear about 21,000 per day to develop properly (GreatSchools.org). 

I’ve found these flashcards to be a great help in ensuring my baby hears new and familiar words often. Plus, seeing the corresponding image helps reinforce what the word represents.

Do flash cards help babies?

The Lovevery texture cards and all other “everyday objects” flashcards help babies with language and cognition.

The vocab flashcards we developed here at Two Mama Bears introduce everyday objects that your baby is starting to recognize. Some of the objects on our flashcards may even become your baby’s first words! 

These flashcards for babies help promote speech development, and they lay the foundation for memory development. 

How to Create Your Everyday Objects Flashcards

You will need a laminator, a printer, and ink to make these everyday objects flashcards.

Start by printing out the flashcards. You can choose which ones you want to print in your print settings. I made a lot of these, and I know it takes up some colored printer ink, so you certainly don’t need to print them all.

After you print them, it’s time to laminate. If you don’t own a laminator, we highly recommend the Scotch laminator. It’s been good to Both Mama Bears, and it’s less than $25! You can check out all of our DIY & Crafting supplies recommendations on our Shop page.

Then, cut the laminated sheets in half to separate each flashcard. I got my paper cutter from Hobby Lobby when I was shopping for scrapbooking supplies, but these are also sold on Amazon.

I also recently discovered a rounded corner punch, and I love using this to finish off my DIY activities for kids. It’s definitely an extra, unnecessary step, but it gets rid of the sharp edges and adds a finished look.

Scroll through these images to see the full process:

When you’re done, it’s time to share with your baby and watch the wonder in their eyes. I always love sharing a new toy or activity with my little ones – it’s so exciting!

More DIY Educational Activities for Kids

Two Mama Bears is developing a full library of DIY educational activities for kids. They’re all super easy to create, and they foster awesome learning moments with your kids.

Be sure to check out:

• Counting Sprinkles Printable
• Shape Matching Printable
• Dinosaur Matching Printable

Conclusion

Our family loved using the Lovevery texture cards to introduce new words and objects to our young children. Even when you don’t actively say each word on the flashcards, your little ones will go through them and study each image. It’s amazing to watch!

If you don’t have the budget for the Lovevery play kits, I hope you’ll download and test out these free everyday objects flashcards, ideal for ages 6-9 months.

My nearly 3-year-old still plays with our flashcards – they are a long-lasting activity that captures the attention and interest of babies and toddlers.

If you download them, be sure to share your experience in the comments section!

Check out our extensive collection of free printable flash cards. We provide many sets of free high quality printable flash cards for a wide range of subjects such as Reading, Alphabets, Numbers, Colors, Shapes, Animals, Flags, Transportation, Fruits, Flowers, Vegetables, Weather, and more… These Flash Cards are an excellent learning tool for preschool and kindergarten students. You can print these printable flash cards right away after downloading them.

Recently Added Worksheets

Printable flash cards are a great way to improve memory retention. Preschool reading flash cards exercises assist young learners memorize letters, words, and even phrases via repetition. Preschool reading flash cards worksheets cover a wide range of topics, including holiday themes, sight words, weather lessons, and much more. These delightful flash cards were made with both pleasure and knowledge in mind to keep youngsters interested.

Printable flash cards are effective tools for teaching the alphabet, numbers, sight words, and math to children of all ages, beginning with toddlers. They are excellent resources for parents and instructors who want to make learning easier and more enjoyable. Furthermore, they are an excellent tool to reinforce learning, and the price is reasonable. These are free printable flash cards that you can print right now.

Each flashcard set includes various variants, allowing teachers to tailor each set to their students’ skills! Choose between cards that include or do not include vocabulary terms! Because all of the flashcards are provided in high definition, you can print them at any size you like!

Having entertaining, colorful flashcards guarantees that your children are paying attention to what you’re teaching. Feel free to browse the site and discover the entirely free teaching materials if you teach preschool, kindergarten, or homeschooling.

Do you feel that your child is becoming inattentive and forgetful? Train your child’s mind and help your child improve their concentration with picture flashcards. 

Flashcards for kids help toddlers from a very tender age to memorize strategically through fun and games. The free printable flashcards with pictures help the children learn the various animals, colors, and whatnot. 

Children grow up fast, and as parents, we all want to spend as much time possible with our little hearts. So why not enjoy a game with flashcards images. 

Trust us; these flashcard images will become your kid’s new game every evening. So, what are you waiting for? Visit our website, and our AI will give you every possible solution to make your kid’s learning fun and creative.

Over the last week, I have been working with Dexter, who just turned six, on his reading skills. We have this great set of Lego Star Wars phonics books that we bought him, and he has been going through them, sounding out each sight word beautifully. But I do find that it’s sometimes hard to get him to pay attention because he wants to just get through the story, and he isn’t always so concerned with actually reading. As such, he tries to guess each word instead of sounding it out.

I decided that the best thing I could do was to create some sight words flash cards that would help him to memorize a few of the most often appearing words so that he can begin the process of putting sentences together.

In all honesty, I’ve been amazed at his progress. He’s recently had his mid-year testing done, and our parent teacher conference was very telling. He has come a LONG way since the beginning of the year, and he is way ahead of where he used to be. But that doesn’t mean he’s caught up to the rest of his class. In fact, he’s significantly behind them.

Because of his early hearing loss, for which he had surgery at almost three years old, he has been massively delayed in his learning skills. He’s never gone to preschool, nor had any therapy leading up to starting kindergarten, so he was off to a harder start than others. But he’s done so well this year to better himself, and we are so proud. To put it in perspective, though, his little brother, Dan – who just turned four – can read almost as well as he can. He knows all his letters and their sounds, and he can sound out two- and three-letter words amazingly well.

So basically, we are now working hard with both kids to help them to reach their full potential. For Daniel, I guess he will be ahead of his peers, or at least on par with them when he starts kindergarten in a year and a half. And for Dexter, we are hopefully going to be able to enable him to catch up to his classmates as quickly as he can. I know he has the rest of the year to learn as much as they can teach him. He has a wonderful teacher, and he loves her class. The rest is up to us.

With that in mind, I decided to share these printable flash cards so that others can print them off and use them to help their own kids. These are some of the most common sight words, and they are perfect to begin at preschool level. But they are also great for 5 – 8 year olds who may struggle with reading.

Please feel free to click on each worksheet for the pdf to print out. I suggest using card stock to print them on, but you could also use regular printer paper and use self-adhesive laminating sheets to laminate each card to make them more sturdy.

I hope these can help someone else.

Please feel free to share this post with anyone who may need it. My aim is to help other parents to help their children learn to read more easily.

Обучение чтению sight words — это дополнение к обучению чтению фонетическим методом (а supplement to phonics instruction). Phonics — это обучение связям букв со звуками, т. е. фонетический подход к обучению чтению, а обучение чтению sight words призвано ускорить знакомство ребенка с часто распространёнными словами, следовательно позволяет увеличить скорость чтения на начальном этапе. Самый эффективный способ учить c детьми sight words — это многократное повторение в форме игровых упражнений с флеш-карточками.

Сustom Flash Card Creator
Сделайте свои флэш-карточки sight words. Создавайте необходимый к конкретному уроку комплект карточек со словами из списка Fry Sight Words и/или своих собственных. На нашем сайте для вас работает Custom Flash Card Creator.

Fry Sight Words список из 1000 слов разбит на списки по 100 слов. За первый год обучения, обычно, изучают первые 100 слов. Посмотреть и распечатать каждый список можно, наведя курсор на слово «список».

В зависимости от вашей педагогической задачи вы можете выбрать размер для печати флэш-карточек в 3х вариантах:

• Одна карточка на странице А4: такие крупные карточки удобно повесить на стене/доске, подходят для игр на полу.
• Две карточки на странице А4: такие карточки среднего размера подходят для младшего возраста, на них крупный шрифт, и их размер позволяет играть с ними в игры.
• Четыре карточки на странице А4: идеальны для учеников постарше, такие карточки удобно использовать в играх (например, мемори, бинго и т. п.).

Рекомендуем распечатывать карточки на плотной бумаге, если вы хотите использовать их дольше.

Чтобы распечатать карточки, выбираете:

1. Количество карточек на странице
2. Список слов, которые хотите вывести на печать и/или
3. Впечатываете в пустые клетки свои слова, которые вам нужны
4. Нажимаете кнопку «СОЗДАТЬ» и получаете готовый файл в формате pdf.

Его можно и сохранить, и распечатать.