The key word throughout this blog is encourage, try not to force or put pressure on your child, ensure that this is fun or you can possibly teach your child that learning is not fun and this can create a more difficult learning process in the future.
Introducing their name by sight
- Wooden Letters for the wall
- Label snack containers, cups, etc. with their name (alphabet stickers are a great way to do this and your child can help you by placing them on the item)
- Write your child’s name in sidewalk chalk and get them to say the letter as they step on each one
- Sing the song ‘Bingo’ and replace the letters with the letters of your child’s name
- Looking in a book ~ ‘Can you spy the letters of your name?’
- Driving in the car ~ ‘Can you spy the letters of your name?’
- Sitting in the grocery cart ~ 'Can you spy the letters of your name?'
- Have activities easily accessible and in various ways, allowing your child to become familiar and comfortable with the letters and be able to place them in the correct order
- Refrigerator magnets
- Foam Bathtub letters
- Cut letters out of magazines and have your child glue them in the right order
- Paint rocks with the letters of your child’s name
- Wooden alphabet blocks – have more than what’s is in your child’s name, this allows them to seek out the letters they need
- Alpha-bits cereal or alphabet soup, moving the letters around to create name
- Letters cut out of felt, you can use a felt board to stick them on or simple a rectangle piece of felt placed on a table or sometimes a couch will work too!
- Alphabet stickers
Writing the letters of their name
Make it fun! Not work! Have their own very special pencil, maybe allow them to pick it out at the store, or surprise them with a fancy one. There’s just something so great about a brand new, freshly sharpened pencil! Make this time quality time, ensure that when your child is first starting out that there is no pressure to be perfect, it’s all about the process of learning at this stage, not the final product.
- Write the letters on a piece of paper and encourage your child to trace over them
- There are many educational websites for preschoolers that allow you to type in your child’s name and it will print out their name in dot form, for great tracing practice
- Write the letters clearly at the top of a piece of paper with lines on it, encourage your child to copy the letters and continue to copy them until they reach the bottom
- Encourage them to write or create their name in a variety of ways, not just with pencil and paper
- During a shower write with soap on the shower door
- Use bathtub crayons to write it along the tub
- Sidewalk chalk outside
- Form letter shapes using play-dough
- Write out their name across a piece of cardboard or stiff paper and encourage them to use buttons and glue them along the shape of their name letters
