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Name Writing Practice and Letter Knowledge

Recent research took a closer look to investigate whether children learn letter knowledge from name writing practice and general letter writing practice.

Name writing practice is an important skill during the early school years. Many times it is some of the first handwriting practice that children complete. Their name has meaning to them which makes it more motivating to practice writing. Recent research took a closer look to investigate whether children learn letter knowledge from name writing practice and general letter writing practice.

3 Reasons Why Name Writing Practice is Important

Name writing practice is an important skills for children to learn for many reasons.

Name Writing Has Meaning

When children first start out learning how to write their name, the word has meaning to them. They understand that it represents them and they have seen many other children and adults model name writing, learning that it is a functional skill.

Name Recognition Is Necessary

Young children need to be able to recognize their name in order to know where to sit or where to hang their coat in early childhood classrooms. It is one of the first words they may learn how to read.

Signing Your Name is a Life Skill

The ability to write your name is still a necessary life skill for everyone.

What Does the Research Say on Name Writing Practice?

A study published in Early Child Development and Care evaluated the writing skills (name writing and letter writing) and decoding skills in 266 young children’s (mean age = 55.41). The decoding skills examined letter knowledge, letter-word identification, and phonological awareness. The researchers also investigated whether children learn letter writing from their own names, and whether children’s gender is related to their early writing.

Following data analysis, the research on name writing practice and letter knowledge indicated the following:

  • for the children who wrote recognizable letters in both name writing and letter writing tasks, they wrote a significantly higher percentage of dictated name letters than non-name letters.
  • letter knowledge was related to both name writing and letter writing skills.
  • once children had developed basic writing skills, earlier gender differences in writing skills were no longer significant.

The researchers concluded that classroom instructions should integrate children’s own names and decoding knowledge into writing activities (Zhang. C. et al, 2019).

Name Writing Practice in the United States

Interestingly, name writing practice plays an important role in young children’s understanding of the difference between drawing and writing in the United States. One study revealed that some children younger than three years old differentiated writings from drawings in the implements they used, the size of their productions, and their use of recognizable letters. These distinctions appeared first for the child’s name (Otake, et al, 2017).

Name Writing Ability Can Predict Future Academic Skills

Did you know that name writing has been shown to predict future academic skills? Educational Research published research on a large sample study of 14932 children from England, Scotland and Australia. Previous research had indicated that in the USA name writing ability was a robust indicator which correlated with other known indicators of later reading regardless of name length (Copping et al, 2016).

Activities to Help with Name Writing Practice

Need ideas to help students with name writing practice? To begin with sometimes children are not ready yet to actually pick up a pencil and start writing. There are several ideas you can do to help establish name recognition.  You can check out some activities to practice name recognition without picking up a pencil here.

Color Your Name (or color any word) is a no-prep digital packet to encourage children to practice their handwriting skills, name recognition along with letter knowledge.
Color Your Name (or color any word) is a no-prep digital packet to encourage children to practice their handwriting skills, name recognition along with letter knowledge.

The ability to recognize the letters is a helpful skill to make name writing easier for children to learn. Color Your Name is a fun way to encourage students to write their name (or any word) then find and color the letters in their name. You can download a free sample page here.

The Name Writing Activities bundle created by school based Occupational Therapist, Thia Triggs, helps students to identify and sequence letters and supports learning to write their name.

Do you want a quick and easy way to provide scaffolded support to your students who are learning to write their name?  Do your students need materials that will help them feel successful and motivated to persist through multiple trials?  The Name Writing Activities bundle created by school based Occupational Therapist, Thia Triggs, helps students to identify and sequence letters and supports learning to write their name.

References:

Copping, L. T., Cramman, H., Gott, S., Gray, H., & Tymms, P. (2016). Name writing ability not length of name is predictive of future academic attainment. Educational Research58(3), 237-246.

Otake, S., Treiman, R., & Yin, L. (2017). Differentiation of writing and drawing by US two-to five-year-olds. Cognitive development43, 119-128.

Zhang, C., Diamond, K. E., & Powell, D. R. (2019). Do children learn letter writing from their names? Examining the relations between Head Start children’s writing skills and name-specific letter knowledge. Early Child Development and Care189(5), 747-762.

Recent research took a closer look to investigate whether children learn letter knowledge from name writing practice and general letter writing practice.