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Skills to Practice this Month
- Encourage your child to practice writing the letters in her own name.
- It’s important for children to know their first and last name. Provide opportunities for children to talk about the letters and sounds in their name. Provide pencils, markers, and paper and encourage your child to practice writing the letters in her name. Write your child's name often.
Activities
Ask your child to sign cards or thank-you notes or to autograph paintings or other pieces of artwork. Your child’s desire to write his name will increase as he begins to understand that his name represents him and that his words are a form of self-expression.
Have your child practice writing the letters in their name by providing tactile learning experiences. Try letting them practice with:
- Chalk on the sidewalk
- Alphabet blocks on the floor
- A stick in the sand
- Fingers in paint
- A spoon in flour
- Magnetic letters on the refrigerator
- Pretzel sticks
Talk about the shapes in the letters, (straight and curvy lines) that make your child’s name. Look at upper case and lower case letters.
Tell your child how her name was chosen and how her name is special. Talk about other people, famous, historical, or familiar, that have the same first name as your child. Look up your child's name in a baby name book to see what its meaning is and share this with your child.
Useful Websites
- PBS
This page of the PBS web site describes how to play a name-based graphing game with young children.
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