When Sean was 20 months old, I began reading him an ABC book. Each page had a letter and a picture of an object starting with that letter. I would say the phonic sounds of each letter, Aaa is for Apple, Buh is for Ball. He loved it. So we did it every night as his bedtime story.

I didn’t realise at the time that I was in fact implementing a flash card learning technique. Now I don’t know much about the technique. But I have some friends who use flash cards on their infants. They do it 3 TIMES A DAY for their daily learning routine. I see them wave cards with “WEDNESDAY” and “ELEPHANT” at their tiny babies, who seem more interested in the specks of dust twinkling through the windows.

I used to think, “Whoa that’s dedication. Interesting, but definitely not for me.”

The irony in all this is : now that Sean is 26 months old, he can recognise and give the phonic sound to 22 letters. He gets stuck with V, J, P and Y.

I’m not exactly exploding with pride, because I’m too busy being gobsmacked. I can’t believe it. It happened so… suddenly and unintentionally. It’s very freaky, especially when his older brother (4 years old) can recognise 24 letters. Not that I’m comparing or anything. It’s just interesting to notice the outcomes between stuff I’ve done with one kid versus the other.

So I stand corrected. I’m very impressed with this flash card thing. Especially when it’s raining outside.

I went out and bought a set of proper alphabet phonic flash cards. And it got me thinking, I’d like to have some good Chinese flash cards (with pinyin). With simple everyday words. Anyone have any ideas where to buy them online?

Amazon - Chinese Flash Cards

China Sprout - Flash Cards

Asian Parent - Listen & Learn Bilingual Chinese Flash Cards + CD

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