Remember breaking out that stack of index cards and writing your question on one side and the answer on the other? Reviewing them over and over again – how boring was that and do you really think it is effective? With the amount of knowledge kids are expected to amass these days in school, the old flash card system is truly outdated.  This is especially true if your child has trimester exams or yearly comprehensives which require memorization of  entire trimester or yearly work!

My favorite tool of choice for general studying is Quizlet. Quizlet is a free (there is a paid plus version that most people won’t need), internet application where you start with flash cards made by you or you can choose from millions of flash cards sets created by others.  But that’s just the beginning – once you’ve got flashcards, you can use several study modes including multiple choice tests and study games. You can add images and listen to audio, and even study on the go with one of dozens of Quizlet-compatible mobile apps. We downloaded FlashCards Sync for the iPhone to my son’s phone so he can review on the bus in the morning.  I like that it has a smart study feature – as long as you are honest and check off whether or not you knew the answer, the application will filter out the answers you knew and keep bringing back the problems that gave you trouble.

With Quizlet, you can also create study groups and allow members to contribute flash cards to the group.  This is an excellent resource to study for those trimester and comprehensive examinations. What I do, is take flash card sets we already made, add quiz and test questions/answers to them and create a trimester exam study set.

Hope you give it a try and find Quizlet as wonderful resource as we do!