Name Recognition by Emma from @Teacherplay

Name Recognition Tips

Before trying to teach your little one to write their name, they must recognise it. Therefore, you must make sure they are exposed to their name as much as possble. If you think about it how many places around the house do you have your little ones name? Can they see it when they go in every room? Could you add in extra places where they can see their name? When they go to school one of the first things they will be asked to do is ‘find their name’ either on their peg, work draw or name card. Therefore, the more they see their name and recognise it as their own the better. Also why teach a child to write their name before they can understand/read it.

My first tip, is either write out their name on things that belong to them. Put their name underneath their shoes and they have to place their shoes on top of their name when they get home. Write their name on their bed, chair, table place etc. They will then start to see their name around the house and realise that its theirs and it belongs to them.

Key questions to ask at this stage:

-Can you find your name?

-Can you see your name?

-Can you go and put your favourite toy on your name?

-Is that your name or mummies name?

-Who does your name belong to? (This is a harder question than you think)

Extra Tip - Whilst you’re busy putting your child’s name on things, put their name in/on everything that will enter into the school/nursery you won’t believe the amount of things that can get lost in the first few weeks!

Name Sounds

Once your child has started to recognise their name, you need to encourage them to see that it is made up of sounds. Using the cards from our personalised name pack, hide them around the house and ask your little one to collect them all and bring them back. Ask them to order them together. Then when they are in the right order act surprised that it makes their name. You can do this a few different ways. You can have the sounds up around the house and when your child walks past say the sounds and then explain that sound is in your name. You can also have the flashcards up on their door and then take one away everyday for your child to guess which one is missing and put it back in the right place.

Key questions to ask at this stage:

-How many sounds are in your name?

-What sound comes first?

-What comes next?

-What does it spell?

-What sound is missing?

Capital Letter

This is really important. Sometimes we see children come into school writing their name all in capitals or all in lower case letters. The best thing to do is teach them the correct way from the very beginning. The best way to teach the capital letter is to TALK. Sounds strange i know. But you need to explain to your little one that they are important. Everyone in the world is important. Therefore, important things (Such as names of places and countries) have capital letters at the start. “ Your important so you have a capital letter at the start of your name.” This letter is bigger than the other letters and it always comes at the start of the word or name. Let your little one have a go at writing their capital letter as big as they can outside. I would suggest using water, paint or chalk. Then show your little one that when you write out your name, their name, their friends name all of the first letters are the biggest ones. Finally, mix up all the letters of their name (making sure the capital is not at the start). Can you put them in the correct order? How do you know that letter comes first? To give them a head start and to work on numbers you could write the number 1 on the capital letter too.

Key questions to ask at this stage:

Who/what is important?

What comes at the start of your name?

What comes at the start of my name?

Is it a big letter or a little letter?

Who else do you know that’s important? Will they have a capital at the start of their name?

Lots of repetition

Sometimes, you think recap and repition is boring. We also think our kids have picked it up after hearing it once. Well the best thing to do is repeat yourself everyday but for a short period of time. Little ones do not have a long attention span therefore little and often is better. Never say, ‘It’s time to learn your name, or its learning time.’ You want to aim for the fact that they don’t know they are learning.

This is where you need to choose one sound a day or a week. You want to teach the sound. Therefore follow this example…

Introduce new phenome with activity.

Look, listen, say: Look at the TeacherPlay flashcard together and speak the phenome and rhyme aloud. Pupils to repeat sound and rhyme together. Tip: To aid understanding, show pupils objects that are pronounced with the same phenome. Put these objects in a sound bag.

Head over to Emmas Instagram page for more tips and tricks with phonics and name writing