Can your 4 year olds write their names?

Just wondering how far along we should be on letters and such. My gals do not go to preschool yet (they will in the fall) and I am not sure of milestones when it comes to letter recognition and writing words/names.

Can you share with me what your 4 year olds are doing in these areas?

Thanks!

Lisa

 

At 4 years old my oldest DD could write her name, in all upper case letters.

Can they spell their names? I know in my DD's 3 year old preschool, she actually turned 4 the next month due to her Oct. b-day, but they had them spelling their names then.

 

My son is three he will be four in October and in Canada they start school then... I was told by his junior kindergarten teacher that before he enters school he should be able to...Identify his name when he sees it....hold a crayon, pencil properly, cut with scissors, do own toilet routine with little assistance, with familiar stories he should be able to tell you what happens next...umm count to 10 and try to count further..recognize colors and some simple shapes and pretends to read...
hope that helps..

 

QUOTE(Jersey_Girls @ Jul 3 2007, 02:23 PM) [snapback]316256[/snapback]
Just wondering how far along we should be on letters and such. My gals do not go to preschool yet (they will in the fall) and I am not sure of milestones when it comes to letter recognition and writing words/names.

Can you share with me what your 4 year olds are doing in these areas?

Thanks!

Lisa



My 4yr old is writing her full name, she can read and write the full alphabet, she can spell basic 3 letter words, and knows all her colors. All children are different, so they learn differently. My daughter retains EVERYTHING...from Sesame Street to songs from church. So I think if you start working with your girls daily then they can be caught up to basics (if not already) for preschool. They should be able to recognize at least the beginning of the alphabet and their 1st name.

Here are a few things you can try:

1. Put their names on their individual items and point to it as well as say out loud each letter. Have them do it everyday.
2. Everytime you recognize that something is a basic color (red, blue, green, etc.) ask them what color it is. If they get it wrong correct them and spell it for them, every time.
3. Have them to count how many birds, dogs, trees, etc. (whatever might amaze them) that they see OR count their fingers and toes, every day.

The key is to teaching children is repetition. They remember things that is in song and that repeats itself.

Good Luck.

Wife of Gabriel, Mother of Kailyn Noel (11 yrs old) & Heaven NaKohl (4yrs old), & working on TWINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Thought I would chime in, due to my teaching experience. I teach kinder and in the spring, we see about 70 four and five year olds that come in to do a little pre-kinder assessment/screening. I would say that MOST of those kids can write their name. And out of those kids, MOST write in all capital letters. (Our cut-off date for starting kinder is Dec. 1, so we saw lots of 4 1/2 year olds this spring.)

We encourage the parents, whose children are to enter Kinder in the fall, to start practicing writing their name in lowercase letters with a capital in the beginning.

 

My girls are same age as yours. They will Not write their name. They recognize letters they can go thru books and say the "letters" not words. I figure when they go to school they will do it, I think they probably can, but won't becoz I'm trying to coax them (does that make sense).

My thing is they will do it when they're ready, just like with everything else.

When they had their birthday party I did notice that the other 4 year olds at the party had written their own name on the cards.

Hope this helps.


amanda

 

Annie is 4 1/2. She has another year of preschool because here in Michigan the cut off date is December1; her birthday is December 5. She has been writing her name for over a year in all capital letters. She writes her N's backwards. She can also recognize, spell, and write our last name (all 3 letters of it). She can write most of the other letters and will write her sisters' names if we tell her what letters to write. She's known all her colors for forever and can count to 30, and can count by 10s to 100. She picks things up very easily through songs; that's how she started counting by 10s.

Try educational music CDs, great to listen to in the car--a captive audience, and DVDs.

 

My son just turned 5 but has been writing his name since he was about 3 1/2. He can now write his first and last name correctly on kindergarten paper. He has been to preschool 3 x a week. His last two teachers did work with the kids on writing their names. I have worked with him some. He picks up things very quickly and loves to write words. He would rather write words on paper than go outside and play.
I wanted to add that my son loves the website www.starfall.com. It is a great resource for teaching letter recognition. I've been using it to teach my son how to read. He loves it and can use the site by himself after showing him how to do it. I bet your girls would love it too.

 

My boys are 5 and can both write their names, a year ago, it was iffy. I am doing camp with kids going into K in the fall, and 3-4 of my 16 kids don't write either legible or in order--one writes backwards order, ie, if his name was Marcus he writes it sucraM. If they are just going to start pre-school this fall, I wouldn't be concerned, they will work on it this year.

 

My boys learned how to recognize and write their name at 4-years old. Right now we are working on putting letters together to form words. They will start kindergarten in the fall.

 

Mine can recognize all the letters and know their sounds.
recognize a few short words
know and recognize their full names
can write their names but not good

We need to work on numbers here. They have a hard time recognizing anything higher than 10. They can count to 20 but miss 17 everytime.

 

Nicole can write her name but still needs coaching on how to put the letters in the right order. Jamie can write a J and copy her name below if I write it out for her. We read alphabet books and they do a lot of drawing/printing, and they also like to fiddle around with "Word" on the computer (I just increase the font size and pick a colour for the letters and they try to do their names that way--press random letters for fun). We also have shape books and number books. Apart from that, I don't "work" with them on anything in particular. They start JK in the fall and I figure if I need to work with them on anything, the teacher will let me know.