Picture flashcards for the whole family.

Multilingual children expect multiple labels for the same picture. Bilingual infants acquire translation equivalents — the same concept in both languages — from their very first words, in 26 of 27 children studied (Pearson, Fernández & Oller, 1995). Trilingual children completely lack the “one label per concept” heuristic that monolinguals rely on (Byers-Heinlein & Werker, 2009). Showing the same cat across French, English, Japanese, and Mandarin works with the way their brains develop, not against it.

Spaced retrieval beats spaced re-viewing. In preschool vocabulary studies, repeated retrieval at increasing intervals produced recall that was stable across a one-week interval, while immediate-only retrieval decayed substantially (Leonard et al., 2022). Each card you rate adjusts the schedule using the same FSRS algorithm Anki uses for adults — adapted for the kids' faster sessions.

Picture-word learning becomes productive between 18 and 30 months and consolidates from age 2.5, when children “readily appreciate the relation between a picture and its referent” (DeLoache, 1991). For toddlers under 18 months, real objects and conversation matter more than screens.

You being there is what makes it work. The dialogic-reading literature has shown for 35+ years that interactive parent-led engagement produces substantially better language outcomes than passive consumption (Whitehurst et al., 1988; Mol et al., 2008). A flashcard session is a starting point for a moment of language together — not a quiz to drill alone with a screen.