Learn Your Name Puzzle

I have been struggling a bit to teach Brady how to spell his name. He can recite to you, “B-R-A-D-Y” but has had trouble learning to write it and also identifying the letters.

I have a hard time with a lot of “learn to spell your name” activities because I feel like they are for kids who already know how to spell it.  They are more like quizzes than teaching opportunities.  I’ve been trying to find a way to incorporate fun with letter recognition without just shoving flashcards down his throat.  I made this simple name puzzle assuming he wouldn’t like it but surprisingly he did!

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 Make a Learn Your Name Puzzle

All you need is a few index cards and markers to make these.  I cut each card in half in a different pattern; zig zag, swirl, diagonal, etc.  Then I wrote the uppercase letter and lower case letter in the same color – one on each side.

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Since he has been having difficulty identifying the upper and lower case letters I thought it was important to put them here.  He gets to match the big B with the little B and he doesn’t necessarily have to know they go together.  He can make the match by color or by fitting them together.

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I make sure he puts them in order of his name and then when he’s complete we start at the beginning and repeat each letter.  I point and he says, “big B, little b” and so on.  If he needs help, I tell him what it is but make him look and repeat it.  This isn’t a quick solution but this is a fun way to get him paying closer attention to the letters in his name.