Writing Your Name?

I have twins that will be 4 in December. One can write her name, the other can not. Tell the teacher to take a break. All kids develop at a different pace. I promise, by the time he is 20, no one will care that he couldn't do it right away at 4.

A.,
PLease don't take what this "teacher" says to heart. I put the word in quotes as it has been my experience that most MDO staff are wonderful and loving but are NOT trained teachers.
The joy of children is watching them learn and develope at their own rate.
My mom teaches Pre-School in California- they are suppossed to introduce the kids to pens/crayons/pencils etc but are not even suppossed to try and get them to write their names or any words.
Just let him be a little boy :-)

D.

www.handwritingforkids.com allows you to put in a child's name and they make the worksheet for you, you just print it out. It's free and easier that doing it dotted yourself.
Kids learn at different times and while some are ready young others aren't ready until they are older. Same with Potty Training. You are perfectly fine and the teacher is a crack pot. I would actually take offense to someone who said that to me about my child. I would have looked at her and said
"HE'S 4"!
I do home daycare as well as home school, pre-school, mother's day out etc. and I would NEVER say that to a parent. ~~~~~~E~V~E~R~~~~~~!!!!!!
Now, when the child is in First Grade and at school every day and the teacher says your son isn't learning at a pace he should be, he can't write his name yet...then hmmm I would say there's a problem. But again, he's 4!
The worksheets may help a little bit because it's good...in fact I have a 5 yr. old whom I teach during the say and she was struggling with her name until I found the aboe website.
Because the dots were so much better than what I could do, I was sure excited! She started doing better and it getting much better. But, there again, she just turned 5 and is just now getting it, but her 3 yr. old brother writes like an angel.
My kids...4 kids...the following ages are when they could write thier name.. Ages 3 - 4 - 5 - 5. Hint (the ones that were young were in Head Start and Preschool....ALL DAY...it wasn't because I did it at home..
Okay, stepping down off the soap box...hang in there, and remember to pat yourself on the back and relax..you are fine, she's a crack pot! lol :)

Get the Video LeapFrog Letter Factory. He will fall in love with letters and the desire will grow to write his own name. Have fun, and don't push it.

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Hi A.,

I don't know that I would call the teacher a "crackpot," but I might question her sensitivity. As a teacher, you well know that children learn at different rates, and in different manners. Your child may not have an interest yet in using a pen, pencil, crayon, or marker to write his name. However, perhaps he would be motivated to learn to write the first letter of his name with his finger in a plate of cholocate pudding? - or possibly shaving cream? Maybe he's more attracted to mud, or arranging sticks in the image of the letter of his first name. Maybe, if he likes candy (there's a big "if," right?), you could make a special candy game in which he could arrange the candies to cover your dotted letters. Later, he might need to go over your dotted letters with a pen (markers are usually the most interesting) before arranging the candies over his writing - and then, of course, he would get to eat the prize! The idea is to make it age appropriate and developmentally appropriate for him.

You are obviously too intelligent to allow this woman to bait you into pushing your son to write in an effort to have him reach a level that she deems necessary. He can, and most likely, will learn this task best if the lesson has the most important quality for a four year old - FUN!

I hope this is helpful - and that you and your son have lots of messy fun together!

S.

I agree with the others that you should not be worried. And that the teacher is not a crackpot, but insensitive. Another website is http://www.handwritingskills.com and then click on handwriting worksheets. YOu can choose your font, etc. and then just type in the name and it prints it out on dotted lines and then leaves blank space for your child to trace and then rewrite.

I was in childcare for years and yes, typically children do begin learning to write their names by the time they are three or four, but that doesn't mean they all know how to and can do it by then! Even in kindergarten, there are many children who can't yet write or even spell their names. Don't give up or get discouraged. The kids in the program may be a little more adept at doing it b/c they are structured to do it every day, but everyone catches up eventually! Good Luck!

Hi A.,
I don't think you should be offended or consider the teacher to be a crack pot. Take it for what it's worth and use it gage development, and that's all. It sounds like from the other posts that it's not abnormal for a 4 y/o not to be able to write his name. But it has caused you to consider learning opportunities for your son and that's a good thing. We just put our 3 y/o in a day school and we were shocked to see that they knew shapes and how to use a computer mouse and our son didn't. So now we work with him on those items. We don't push but we try to reinforce what he is exposed to in school. By the way, if you want some good books we use the A-becka (sp?)learning plan. Which is the same the school uses.
Good luck. :-)

Don`t worry, some kids that just started Kindergarden don`t know how to write their full name, maybe just their first. I wouldn`t stress about it. I learned to write mine when I was 6, because back then public school started at 6 years old. I would try to work with your son a little bit every day, but without any pressure, otherwise he`s going to hate handwriting, and you don`t want him to start public school with that feeling. Just a thought.

My two boys learned in Preschool how to write their name (age 4), but the teacher taught them. I tried several times to sit them down and show them while they were younger, but had no luck. They seem to listen to others so much better than me, so I was happy to see what they learned in preschool.

Maybe ask your Crackpot teacher to show him. ;)

Good luck.

Hi, you didn't say if he could verbally spell his name, or not, but, what we have done with our two oldest boys, and intend to do with our 24 month old, is make up a little tune to sing the letters of his name to. This worked really well, especially with our oldest, because his name has eight letters and is fairly unusual. My middle son would go around singing his name song even when we weren't practicing. Hope this helps.

I just read an article recently...I think it was in the Advocate about, "Are We Pushing our Boys Too Much?" or something like that. It seems that because boys mature much slower than girls it carries over into the classroom. Girls are more likely to be able to write their name at age 4 than boys, among other academic milestones.

But don't worry...my 4 year old daughter still cannot write her name yet.

My son is in Kindergarden - almost six - and just learning. I wouldn't stress about it. I hatehatehate the mindset that every child should be able to do something by a certain age, every chlid grows and develops differently!!!

This is the SECOND time today i've read this question online by the way, and the first time was a born in 02 board. Crazy.

Also big thanks to whoever sent the handwriting link, i've been wanting to find that again! It is perfect.

A.,

I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. My son is also 4 and cannot write all of his name yet. We work on it at home, but he also gets frustrated after a little while of not being able to do it so I don't push him too hard. I don't want to push, push, push and it cause problems for him. My son, and I am sure your's as well will write his name when he's ready. Just keep working on his letters and have fun with it.

It does sound about right that they should be writing their name by now, but every kids learn at a different pace, and you can not except them to pickup on it if they were never show how to do it. My son is 4 1/2yrs old and he knows how to write A thru Z and his name. They are also doing phonics with him. And my son started off learning how to write A thru Z and then started writing his name about 2 months ago. I hope this information helps!

T.

Well I've read most of the responses and I agree that your child is not slow...or behind or that you've been lazy in any way. I have 4 wonderful girls and after the first two I realized I couldn't even compare siblings much less children as a whole. Children often learn with consistancy and all of my girls went to Pre-K, five half days a week. I started them when they were 3 and I'm still not sure that my 3rd daughter wrote her name at 4. And when she did finally start to write it was mostly backwards! I thought she was dyslexic (sp?)~! I do think that kids learn out of fun play. The pudding thing and the shaving cream I remember when they were in preschool. That might be something you do with him at home if he's not going to go to Pre-K but most children do learn at school. I think good learning and classroom habits are reinforced at home though...just wanted to throw that in there.

I have 4 kids & all of them learned how to write their names at different times. While one knew how to write her name when she was young another didn't learn until she was in kind. & the other 2 learned at diff. times in between there.

A.,
I am a preschool teacher and just starting off the year-no, your son isn't behind not writing his name yet. That is something that the teacher should be working on this year and by the end of the school year then he should be able to write his name. I think that's being too pushy to expect so much so soon and if you push him too much he'll never like learning. I'd get some preschool books about writing, etc. just to help him practice.
Blessings,
E.

Hi A.,

I have a 4yr. old girl. Her birthday is in April. She attends a pre-school 3 days a week. Her teacher said that her class would work on writing their names and recognizing their names this year. She is not expected to be able to do that already. I know some children can write their names at this point, but not all do. My daughter has a long name (9 letters) and can write 5 of them. I'm not an expert on pre-school children (or any other children), but I'd talk to the director of the school and find out what the expectations should be and then check around with other schools.

I didn't read all your responses so I don't know if this was already suggested. I heard about this on line and my son is much more comfortable with this method. He also likes the write and wipe off type of books. He's 5 and still having trouble writing. He can write is name but is not interested in writing or coloring at all. Anyhow, my suggestion is to write his name with a highlighter then let him write inside the lines. It easier for them to stay inside those lines then trying to trace a dotted letter. Also, with the write and wipe books the pen is going over a smooth surface so there's less resistance. B.