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About these cards

Version 1 was written November 26, 2008
Version 2, updated/rewritten January 6, 2010
Note: there is a step-by-step procedure that I followed with my own
child, between the ages 22 months and 38 months or so, below.
These cards represent many (not all) of the words in the first 67 of the
72 exercises at the back of Why Johnny Cant Read by Rudolf Flesch.
They are presented here in the exact order in which they appear in
the book. Each set number I have here corresponds to a different
exercise in the Flesch book.
Heres a little brain dump about the cards. Some of the sets are
broken into 2-4 parts, but that is because MediaFire.com doesnt
allow file sizes of over 2MB. I have removed some pictures that were
personal (Im presenting these anonymously). I found the pictures via
Google Image Search and MS Words Clip Art. One or two of the sets
are abbreviated because I didnt save them after I created them, or
some such nonsense. Sorry about that. The silent e sets are
combined into one giant set, 29, but thats because my little boy
already knew silent e very well. Sorry about that too. In trying to
reduce the size of card sets, sometimes I divided the sets into parts,
but later on I reduced the image quality. Finally, Im not sure why
some of the card heights are off. Most of them should be fine but a
few are off.
Sets 31-42 were uploaded later than sets 1-30, and apparently
MediaFire.com has changed its policy so now larger files are allowed.
So these files are not broken into parts.
I think these should be called Fleschcards. I just took Fleschs word
lists and added pictures.
Fleschs Instructions [how to teach children to read using
phonics]
Adapted from pp. 125-6 of Why Johnny Cant Read by Rudolf Flesch
(First Perennial Library edition, 1966).
1. Start with the sounds of the letters A (all vowels here are taught in
the short versions first), B, E, F, G (as in go), H, I, J, L, M, N, O, P, R, S,
T, U, V, W, Y (as in yawn), Z.1 Teach Johnny to make the sound when
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In the book, there are some letters and pictures. For teaching the letter sounds,
you can use many different tools. See http://www.starfall.com/ for one free
resource.

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you point to the letter and to point to the letter or write the letter
when you make the sound.
Take as much time as seems necessary for this preliminary work; a
five-year-old may well spend several weeks at it. Be patient; it will
pay off later on. Dont aim for perfection. Rather, make sure Johnny
realizes that letters stand for sounds and is reasonably good at
connecting the right sound with the right letter.
Then, and only then, start with the first set of cards.
2. Whenever Johnny is stumped by a word in the exercises, let him
work it out for himself. Tell him to sound out the word. If he cant, let
him look up the letter that is puzzling him and refresh his memory of
its sound by naming the two pictures aloud. Let him do this as often
as necessary until he is perfectly sure of the sound of the letter. 2
3. Explain to Johnny carefully that there is a small letter and a capital
letter for each sound. However, concentrate on the small letters first.
Difficulties with capital letters can be straightened out later.
4. Use the exercises to teach writing and spelling as well as reading.
You will probably be tempted to go ahead with the reading and slight
the writing and spelling. Try to resist that temptation. Ideally, Johnny
should learn to read and write each of the exercise words at the same
time. Let him write each of the words from dictation. It is well worth
taking the extra time.3
5. There is a large amount of repetition in the exercises, and 22 of the
72 exercises are reviews. However, that doesnt mean that doing each
exercise once is enough. Do each one of them until Johnny can read
and write each word in it without the slightest hesitation. Make as
sure as you can that Johnny can really read all the words.
6. Do the exercises in the exact order in which they are printed.
Otherwise youll defeat your purpose.
7. Watch out for signs of word guessing. Whenever Johnny does any
guessing, insist on his sounding out the word and, if necessary,
looking up the letter sounds.4
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For very little kids, I do not recommend this. Slowly sound out the word for him,
and he will learn how to sound it out himself.
3
Obviously, this is not possible if your child is too young to be able to write out
letters. Thats OK. You can still use the flashcards to learn word recognition,
anyway.
4
In my opinion, Flesch is being a little extreme here. A little word guessing
probably doesnt hurt, as long as the rule is being learned.

Some notes from the producer of these cards

Heres how I started out my very young son reading, using these
cards. First, some background. We had read a lot to him. In the end,
that is much more important than working with flashcards. We both
read and did these cards during mealtimes, when he was a captive
audience. He recognized his ABCs by age 18-20 months, through a
combination of many, many trips through alphabet books, the
LeapFrog Alphabet Bus (any number of other tools would do the
same), and probably some other tools.
We began with these cards at age 22 months, and he was physically
able to pronounce all of the (simple) words on the cards. I was not
just showing the cards; I did ask him to say the words on the cards.
But it wasn't as brutal as this may sound. We took it in stages and I
was gentle every step of the way. Also: I went whole card set by
whole card set, rather than adding new individual cards and retiring
old.
Here is the step-by-step procedure we followed:
1. The first time through a card set (typically, 12 cards), I didn't
ask him to say anything. I just read the word (while running my
finger under it); then pronounced each letter slowly and clearly
("kkk--aaa--tt"); then a little faster; then put the whole thing
together. Then I turned over the card and gave my boy the
card, and talked about the picture. Sometimes, if the word was
new, I would try to explain the meaning of the word in as simple
terms as possible. Words I felt I couldn't explain, I didn't use
(and are not in this package).
2. The second time through the card set, I would begin by doing
the slow-sounding-out thing. Then I would repeat, but speeding
up a little. Then I would ask: what is it? And then he would get
it, almost every time. After doing this several times, he would
get the "game." If he ever had any trouble with a word, I would,
of course, simply read it for him. The aim was always to keep it
low-pressure.
3. The next few times through the cards, sometimes I would ask
him to sound out the word, but he wasn't as interested in this.
He would usually just read the word right away, or else wait for
me to sound it out, and then read it. Whether sounding it out

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himself out loud, silently, or having me do it, I think he got the
idea.
4. After he was reading all of the cards in a set without mistake or
much of a pause (or me sounding them out at all), we'd move on
to the next set.
5. I taught him to say "that's enough." If he said "that's enough"
when we were doing cards, we would stop instantly and not do
any more that day. If he seemed reluctant for a few days in a
row, we'd take break for a week or so. If after a week or so we
came back to cards and he still wasn't interested, we'd take
another break for a few weekseven a month, once or twice.
Then we'd come back to them and he'd be all interested again. I
can't expect it would work that way with everyone, but it
worked that way for us--go figure.
6. After a couple months (ten of Fleschs word lists, or so), I don't
think I sounded out the words much at all after the first time
through a set. I would sound out the words the first time and
after that he'd be able to figure it out himself. Sometimes he
would stare at a word without saying anything for a while, then
he'd just come out with it. I think he was sounding it out in his
head. He now (at age 3) reads silently--very fast, as far as I
can tell. I watch him reading books, over his shoulder, and I
look at his eyes moving over the page. I obviously can't tell if
he's catching all of the words, but the eyes are going back and
forth very quickly and moving down the page quickly. He is able
to answer questions about what hes read.
7. After a few more months (by the time we were to Fleschs word
lists 20-30 or so) I almost never had to sound out words in
advance. I would just explain the new rule, maybe just giving an
example or two, and then he would just read the new words
perfectly the first time. But we kept doing the cards anyway, to
solidify his phonetic understanding. I was glad we did.
8. As he became better and better, his interest in the cards waned,
and we rather gradually tapered off using cards. The last time I
was regularly making new cards was a little over a year after we
started. Since then I did make one set of cards but I felt rather
silly doing it, because he knew the words perfectly well--it was
pretty pointless. So that's why I'm not going to be able to go
over all of Flesch's word lists, I'm afraid. If someone else wants
to finish my work, I'll be happy to upload it to the MediaFire
space.

Frankly, the whole process was pretty painless, and I recommend it,
but I am not a reading expert. I hope the step-by-step instructions
above make it more plausible, if you've had doubts. If your child is old
enough (obviously, this can't be done with kids whose mouths/voices
can't make the sounds) and you don't have any philosophical
objections, try it and see if you have similar luck. Of course, your
mileage may vary. I'd be curious to hear if anyone had an experience
similar to ours, though. My wife, who witnessed the whole process,
was totally convinced that it was my cards, more than Your Baby Can
Read or anything else, that taught our son to read. I agree.
We just finished re-reading Pinocchio this evening, not at all an easy
book for a 3-year-old, and he read most of the last page by himself,
pretty quickly, with excellent intonation, even making the character
voices and everything. At age 3 years 7 months, I think he's sounding
out words (not necessarily understanding them--that's harder to
measure) at about the fifth grade level.
Videos showing our progress:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9d38WJIV10 (29 months)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46XbfN3c09A (33 months)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iHU2yAIu8U (40 months)