Yikes... they can't write their name!

We absolutely do not expect them to be able to write their name before they start school.  You will of course know some children who can write their full name beautifully but remember there will be other children who refuse to even hold a pencil.  

Recognising their name will of course be extremely helpful for their independence.  If they do not recognise their name at all, don't panic but now is the time to give them a helping hand.  Obviously if your child has special educational needs, we will fully support them and it may be that they have other much more important goals that they will be working towards.  

Name recognition activities

- focus on the sound that their name begins with first, eg.  Ssss for Sam, and make the sound rather than saying the letter name.  

-label everything that belongs to your child and make an effort to draw their attention to it.  

-post-it game.  Write the letters of their name on post-it notes and hide them around the room.  Can they find the letters?  When they have them - get them to lay them in order.  You could start with their name written on paper for them to lay the post-it's on top of.  Hopefully once they get used to it they can order them independently.  A similar activity could be to cut it up as a puzzle that they fit back together.

Name writing activities

Once they can recognise their name, you can start practising how to writing it.  As we already said, this is not essential and even if they can write the first letter, that is a really big help as they can label their work.

We have emailed you their name in cursive lettering so that you can see how we form the letters once their start learning to write in school.  You might well be wondering why we use cursive.  The reason being is that once children work their way through school, they get to the end of year two and year three and here the expectation is that they write in joined handwriting.  Some schools start writing in non-cursive lettering but then the children have to re-learn how to form the letters at the end of year two.  We feel that if they learn how to form the letters in this way from the very start, it makes life easier for them in the long run.  Once we start learning sounds - we will send you clips on how to form the letters so that you can swat up and also practise these at home.  You will be amazed at the end of the year just how neat their handwriting looks.  

Here is an alphabet so you can see how the letters should look - Cursive Alphabet

Here are a few  ideas for name writing...  

- rainbow letters:  write their name on a large piece of paper and get them to write over the letters with lots of different coloured pens or crayons.

-write it on the ground in chalk and get them to practise painting over it with water and a paintbrush.

- use masking tape to write it on the floor and get your child to use their little cars to drive over it.

- use a stick and sand to practise writing it out in the sandpit or in a tray of flour.