Check out Name Recognition Part 1 in case you haven’t seen it!

As mentioned in Part 1, we sing the song “Hello, hello, hello” daily to let the kids practice saying their names! Another tip I can share with you is to LABEL everything! At the beginning, we labeled their cubbyholes, tables and chairs with their pictures. After a month, we added their name to the picture. After another month or two, we removed the picture and all that was left were there names. This helped them become more familiar with the letters of their names. It became more of a sight reading experience for them.

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Young children, especially the toddlers, cannot yet identify the letters or how these letters join together to form a word. They do not realize yet that these letters produce a sound and can be combined to produce a different sound. Most of the time, they are able to read something not because they know the letters but because they know the structure. Let me show you what I mean

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When adults or older children see the word TEACHER.. this is what we see:

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We fortunately already understand the letters, hence, we are able to automatically combine the sounds and form the word.

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When toddlers or babies see the word TEACHER, this is what they see:

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Young children do not understand these letters yet, so what they really see is the image or structure formed. Try emphasizing this structure on their names (similar to the way TEACHER was written) and you might be surprised how much quicker they will develop their sight reading skills.

Of course, each child is different. Some toddlers may have already developed reading skills! Once the reading skills are developed, seeing this image would slowly become vague to them. Hope that helped! More to come! Watch out for it!

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Do you have tips you could share? I’d love to hear them!