Teaching Children to Recognize and Spell their First Name

One of the first words that children learn to recognize and spell is their first name. There are a number of creative and hands-on ways to help them with this concept:

-display their name everywhere (e.g., use post-its and stick it on the fridge and bathroom mirror, label their belongings and point out their name to them)

-write your child's name in large print and overlay the print with white glue. Encourage your child to decorate the letters of his or her name using sparkles, macaroni, buttons, and other fun, small objects

-use manipulatives (like in the above picture) that have letters on them to help your child sequence and spell his or her name. Use blocks and unifix cubes

-place magnet letters on your fridge and mix up the letters. Encourage your child to sequence the letters in the proper order. This can be done with recipe cards too. Just print one letter on each card and shuffle.

-stamp out your child's name with cookie cutters or letter sponges dipped in paint

-bake letter cookies together

-use playdough to form the letters of your child's name. Roll the dough into skinny sticks so that it can be manipulated into lines and curves

Once your child has mastered his or her name, move onto other short words and names of other family members.