Free Worksheets for Name Writing Practice

The first step in helping your child learn to write his name is to teach your child the proper formation of the letters in his name.

Although names are typically written with the first letter in uppercase and all subsequent letters in lowercase, this is not the easiest way for your young child to learn to write his name. As a general rule, the uppercase letters are much easier for small hands to form, since all uppercase letters are the same height and typically lack many of the small curves and twists that lowercase letters have. Plus, once your child has mastered writing his name in all uppercase letters, he will be poised to quickly learn the proper formation of the lowercase letters.

Letter writing skills are honed only through practice, practice and more practice. The key is to make sure that when your child is practicing, he is practicing writing letters CORRECTLY. Inexplicably, many "letter tracing worksheets" do not show children the proper way to write each letter. For example, writing involves a left-to-right motion across the page. So when writing an uppercase T for example, the cross on top of the T should be made from left to right and not from right to left as many children do.

Start by finding great letter tracing worksheets, one for each uppercase and lowercase letter. Each worksheet includes 4 rows of tracing lines. The first row shows the step-by-step creation of each letter, including arrows to make sure your child understands the proper formation. The second and third rows have dashed-lined letters that your child can trace over. The fourth row has the lines on which your child should write the letter, but does not have the dashed-line version of the letter. This allows your child the opportunity to try writing the letter on his own. Considering printing out two or three uppercase worksheets for each of the letters in your child's name so that he or she will have plenty of opportunity to practice.

Once your child is familiar with the proper formation of each letter in his or her name, it's time to introduce your child to writing his or her entire name, going in order from the first letter to the last letter.

Although your child does not need to be able to spell, it is helpful if he or she can memorize the names of the letters in his or her name, in order. This way, as your child is writing, he or she can say aloud (or to himself or herself) the name of the letter that comes next as a reminder of what letter to write. You can teach your child how to spell his or her name simply by repeating it often. For example, set the letters of your child's name to a familiar song and instead of singing "E-I-E-I-O" at the end of "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" sing "B-R-I-A-N" using the same tune. Or for a seven-letter name such as Heather, consider singing the letters "H-E-A-T-H-E-R" to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." With just a little exposure, your child will quickly catch on and be able to repeat the proper spelling of his or her name.

Once your child can spell his or her name, he or she is ready to start writing it. Customizable tracing sheets are perfect for this purpose, as you can type in your child's name and the program generates a printable worksheet for you. Check out www.softschools.com for some nice customizable sheets.