Teaching Your Child to Write His or Her Name
How to Help Children Learn to Spell Their First Word
Jul 10, 2009
Self-chosen mark-making should be free and exploratory as it is an expression of a child’s thoughts, feelings and desire to communicate. Early marks are likely to be a mixture of pictures and pre-writing shapes (dashes, squiggles and circles). The child should be encouraged to ascribe meaning to these marks (“read” them) as this helps to develop a sense of the relationship between print and the spoken word.
What to Write With
A child will benefit from the opportunity to experiment with a wide range of tools in addition to traditional pencil and paper. For example, marks can be made using jumbo chalks, glittery sand, corn flour and water “gloop”, painting water on the ground or even scribing into condensation on a window using a finger.
Having a sense of “ownership” of one’s writing, and knowing that this form of communication is valued, is also important as this will help build confidence and the motivation to write. As children near school age, they often show interest in reading and writing their names.
Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum
The EYFS curriculum currently being used in English early years care and education settings, identifies various developmental milestones for children between the ages of three and a half, and five years. These include the following:
- Linking Sounds and Letters – hear and say sounds in words (DFES, 2007, Practice Guidance, p 51);
- Reading – read a range of familiar and common words (DFES, 2007, Practice Guidance, p 56);
- Reading - know that print carries meaning (DFES, 2007, Practice Guidance, p 56);
- Writing – write their own names and other things such as labels and captions (DFES, 2007, Practice Guidance, p 58);
- Handwriting – hold a pencil and use it effectively to form recognisable letters, most of which are correctly formed (DFES, 2007, Practice Guidance, p 60).
If the child is interested, he or she will benefit from help in learning to read and write his or her name as this supports the targets above.
Reading the Child’s Name
When a child learns to read he or she becomes aware that printed marks are symbols (they carry meaning) and that different sounds are represented by letters or combinations of letters. Another aspect of reading is letter recognition or word recognition. It will, therefore, help the child to see his or her name written or typed in different ways and in different contexts. For example, on clothes labels, on a computer screen, handwritten and sequenced using magnetic letters. This will help the child to generalise his or her knowledge from situation to situation, and make his or her learning really secure.
Spelling the Child’s Name
Magnetic letters, flashcards or wooden letters, such as puzzle pieces or blocks, are an effective way of developing children’s understanding of the sequence of letters and sounds in a name. They can sequence the word by copying from a name card or sort out jumbled up letters, putting them back into the correct order. Making this activity into a game will make the learning fun and pressure-free.
Most schools currently use a phonic approach to the teaching of spelling which views sounds (phonemes) as the building blocks of words. Children are taught basic letter-sound correspondences and spelling patterns, which they can use to build words for spelling, or segment words for reading. The name “Tom” would break into T-o-m; “Sharon” would break into Sh-a-r-o-n.
Writing the Child’s Name
Although upper case letters (capitals) may be easier to write, schools tend to teach lower case lettering first, so parents supporting children at home should try to do the same for consistency. Some schools teach fully joined-up, cursive, writing from the outset, but others write letters separately (though often with a little exit stroke – “flick” – as per letter “a” and “d”).
Early writing not only involves learning letter shapes, but also the muscular movements necessary to form the letters. A lot of learning is multi-sensory, so children will be encouraged to practise with “magic pencils” in the air, writing with a finger on a friend’s back, singing and chanting rhymes, such as “all the way round, down and flick”.
Learning to read and write his or name is an important step in a child’s early literacy development. Activities should be kept fun and stress-free so that the child feels a sense of achievement and maintains a love of learning.
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