Flashcards for 5 Year Olds

The year reading starts. These decks are about decoding — turning letters into sounds and sounds into words — rather than naming pictures.

Other ages: Toddlers (2–3) Preschoolers (3–4)

Where to start

⭐Alphabet Journey 📖Sight Words 🔊Phonics 🔢Counting 11–20 🔢Number Match 📚ABC Words 📅Days & Months ↔️Opposites 🧩ABC Drag & Drop 🧠Body Parts Match

See all flashcards and games →

Sight words are the exception, not the rule

Most English words can be sounded out. A small set cannot — the, said, was, come — and those are the ones worth recognising instantly, because they appear constantly and a child who stops to decode them loses the thread of the sentence. That is the whole argument for sight word practice: it is not a shortcut around phonics, it is a patch for the words phonics does not cover.

Everything else should be sounded out, not memorised. If your child guesses a word from its first letter and the picture, that is a habit worth interrupting early.

Blending is the skill to watch

Knowing that c says "cuh" is not reading. Reading starts when a child can run the sounds together — c-a-t into "cat" — and that blending step is where children get stuck far more often than on the individual letter sounds. Our phonics deck works on the sounds themselves; blending them is best practised out loud with you, slowly, one short word at a time.

Numbers in the year before school

Two things are worth having solid: the teens, which break the pattern and trip children up in ways that twenty-one onwards does not, and number words in writing. Counting 11-20 covers the first, and the number matching game covers the second by asking your child to drag the digit onto its written word — recognising "seven" on a page is a separate skill from counting to seven, and it is the one school will assume.

Five-year-olds can concentrate for ten minutes or so, but the returns still fall off quickly. Little and often, and let your child read to you rather than the other way round wherever you can.

Flashcards and games for kindergarten

Kindergarten asks for the same handful of skills everywhere: every letter and the sound it makes, a first set of sight words, and counting and writing numbers. These games each practise one of them:

For everything in one place, see the ABC games and the counting games.

Common questions

What should my child know before kindergarten?
There is no fixed list, but it helps to recognise most capital letters, know some letter sounds, write their own name, count ten objects one by one and recognise the numbers 1 to 10. Kindergarten builds from there: all the letters and their sounds, a first set of sight words, and counting and writing numbers to 20 and beyond.
What should a 5 year old be learning?
Broadly: sounding out short words, recognising the common words that cannot be sounded out, and reading number words as well as counting. The decks on this page are picked around those three.
What are sight words and why do they matter?
They are common words that do not follow normal spelling rules — the, said, was, come. They cannot be sounded out, they appear constantly, and recognising them instantly is what lets a child read a sentence without losing the thread.
My child knows all the letter sounds but cannot read words. Why?
That is the blending step, and it is the usual sticking point. Knowing each sound and running them together into a word are separate skills. Practising out loud with short three-letter words, slowly, is what bridges it.
How long should a session be at five?
Ten minutes is a reasonable ceiling, and less is fine. Frequency matters more than length, and having your child read to you beats drilling cards.
Are these good flashcards for kindergarten?
Yes. They cover what kindergarten asks for almost everywhere: every letter and its sound, a first set of sight words, and the numbers to twenty. They work in the year before school starts and alongside it.
Which flash cards are best for a 5 year old?
Sight words and phonics first, then counting 11 to 20. At five the step that matters is moving from naming letters to reading short words, and those decks are built around it.

Get every deck in the app

All the flashcard decks and matching games, nothing locked, and it works offline. Try it free for 7 days, then $34.99 a year or $3.99 a month — cancel any time.

Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play

Subscription billed through the App Store. Some decks on this site are free to use in your browser.