Skip to main content

Name Recognition

I wanted to start working with Jacob recognizing the letters in his name. I bought some wooden circular discs and painted the letters on them. I found a great idea from Deborah at Teach Preschool on taking my letters the next step.
She cut letter cards with each letter of the child's name and hid them in rice. Then she let the child dig for the letters. I knew this was right up Jacob's alley! He will do anything that evolves digging!!
I set up a pan with rice and put in the letters. One side is the capital letter the other is the lower case letter. I provided a shovel in the pan as well. 
In addition, I printed a piece of paper with Jacob's name on  it in 150 point font. I wanted Jake to put the wooden discs on the paper over the letters once he found them in the rice.
I showed Jake the letters and then hid them in the rice. I did not model for him what I wanted but rather just told him what to do. I sometimes wonder if I give him too much direction. So for this I decided to see how he would do with verbal directions only. 
As you can see he dug right in! (Excuse the hat, goggles and vest. He wears them almost all day everyday!) When he found a letter I said the letter and had him repeat it. Then I told him to look for the same letter on the paper and to place the circle on the letter. He had no problem following my instructions and he had no problem placing the circle on the same letter. I must admit I was a little surprise at the ease he accomplished this task. 
I made sure the letters were facing the correct direction after he placed them on the paper. He did a great job! We repeatedly said the letter and said his name. I chose to teach him how to recognize/spell his full name instead of just Jake.
After we finished he picked up each letter one by one and placed them back in the rice pan and hid them. He was ready to go ahead and start all over! We went through this process 3 times before he was ready to walk away! I was so impressed! Although he did a great job and far exceeded my expectations, I still have goals in  which to work towards. I would like to see him say each letter without prompting, I would like him to say his name and then say each letter spelling his name as he says the letters in order. He is well on his way although I do not know that we will reach these goals this month we will reach them eventually!


abc button

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Play to Write- Week 3

We participating in a Wednesday Play Group called Play to Write over at Cherrios and Lattes . This is week 3- Write/Spell Your Name.  We started this week's practice with some name tracing. Cherrios and Lattes provides the printable for some dotted letters. She suggested doing rainbow writing with this sheet. I showed Jacob but he was more interested in writing all the Jacobs. I started by modeling on the first name. Then I held his hand and we did it together. Finally I let him do the last three on his own with only my verbal prompts.  He took this very seriously and was very proud of himself! I was surprised at how much he liked doing this activity. He has a long way to go but he did pretty well! One thing I had to repeat was not to go around the o and a more than once. He wanted to go around and around. This is an activity that I think he will want to do again! The next activity was Missing Letter Name Practice. We started by singing a little song I sing for Jak

Name Writing Practice

Jacob did a little name writing practice today. He was asked to trace the dotted lines to write letters for his name. This is good practice with spelling as well. I had him say each letter as he wrote the letter.  As you can see he is very choppy and not exactly on the dotted lines. His motor skills are not quite sharp enough yet to be able to hold the crayon and he especially loses control as he works on towards the end. We also did a Missing Letter Name Practice. Both of these ideas came from Cherrios and Lattes ' Play to Write, Write to Read. These are good ways to practice names and writing. He gets very angry if he thinks he made a mistake. See the scribbling. I have to reinforce that it is ok to make a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes but we just keep trying. Practice is the only way to get better. When this happens I cannot help but think of my former students that did the very same thing and proceeded to throw fits and give up. I hope to help Jacob ge

Building Good Readers

"Your boys are such good readers! I wish mine loved to read like yours do! How did you do that?" Can parents build good readers? How do parents build good readers? This might seem like a daunting question, a task too difficult to tackle. But truly, it does not have to be.  As our children grow and become readers on their own accord they often feel that they do not need or want parents to read to them. It is very common for this to happen, but as their parents, it is our job to push back.  Readers are not born, they are made.  We must find times to read to our children. That might mean reading aloud looks different as they get older. Maybe instead of before bed; you are reading at the dinner table, as they are playing, or during snack time. The point is to share books that will pique their interest and hold their attention. You might have to choose books you might not otherwise choose. The key to reading aloud is to m odel reading for them and to show them th