What I discovered after a brief period of this flash card frenzy was that 5 flash cards at one time is not a magic number.  It is simply a guide.  In reality, this would never work for me.  I think most parents are like me in that respect.  I want what is best for my baby, but we need to be realistic about how to accomplish it.  

I never stuck to the 5 words at a time rule.  Well, let me rephrase that, I only followed it if my children were losing interest with a set and I needed to shorten it.  My 5 month old would easily look at 20 words in a set three times a day.  I followed that up with a word book that taught 20 words as well.  Each session usually consisted of teaching 40 words at a time.  While that might seem like a lot, it worked for us. My babies loved the time we spent viewing materials several times a day.  All in all we may have looked at materials for a total of 10 minutes per day.  Some days we did less and somedays we did more, but we always had fun.

When you begin to teach your baby to read you can start with 5 cards, just to gauge your baby's level of interest.  If they are still attentive after seeing 5 words you may want to up it to 10 words or 15 words.  Just  make sure you are always having fun.  Instead of retiring words and adding new words I just changed out my stacks of materials each week.  This worked extremely well for us.  The fondest memories I have of my babies' childhood are the moments we spent playing and learning.

I have put together a video tutorial of all that I learned during this fantastic journey of teaching my babies to read.  You can view it at A Guide to Teaching Babies to Read.  When I first began I had so many questions.  This comprehensive guide will show you exactly how you can teach your baby to read and it answers all those questions you have when you first start out.  I wish it were available when I began.