While searching for information about the alphabetic principle, I stumbled upon an article about using children’s names when teaching letter and sound correspondence.
The following is an excerpt from the article by Elizabeth Kirk and Patricia Clark, “That’s my name!” calls 3 year old Jason as he points to the letter “J” in an alphabet book. “It’s my name too!” asserts Jessica who is sitting next to Jason. Neither child seems concerned that they have chosen the same symbol to represent two different names. They do not yet know that their names each contain a distinct set of letters. However, both children recognize that “J” is the beginning letter in their names; this recognition is a beginning understanding that written symbols can be used to represent names and words” (2005).
Young children who are just learning to recognize letters and their sounds, tend to learn the letters of their own names before recognizing other words. As educators, we can use this recognition to help children make connections to other symbol/sound relationships. Research suggests that educators or parents can start with phonemic awareness activities. Asking children to clap out loud the sounds they hear in their name helps them to isolate different phonemes. Other activities to help children identify letters and sounds include using manipulatives such as sand, cereal, or blocks to spell out names, singing songs that include children’s names, and associating other words or movements to the initial sound in their name.
Making the connection between symbols and sounds is a complicated process. There are 26 letters in the alphabet, yet these letters can produce approximately 44 sounds (Kirk & Clark, 2005)! By associating symbol/sound relationships with one’s own name children feel a special connection and are more eager to learn. Other familiar names can also be used such as Mom, Dad, and the names of pets, friends, or special toys. The alphabetic principle is a valuable concept that helps children begin to make sense of their world and develop the skills necessary to begin reading and writing.
Kirk, E. & Clark, P. (2005). Beginning with names: Using children’s names to facilitate early literacy learning. Childhood Education. 81 (3), 139 -145.
Kelly, I found your post very interesting and was transfixed by the article you used. I take this topic for granted since I teach at the intermediate level. Since I have never taught kindergarteners or first graders I had no idea they had such an invested interest in learning to write their names above other things. What a special word to recognize before any of the others though.
ReplyDeleteThe article also cited that “almost every language skill necessary to learning to read can be introduced by using children's names” (Seefeldt & Galper, 2001). That is mind-boggling to me as it appears at first there are so many language skills to learn. Teachers can definitely benefit from this and introduce a variety of early literacy concepts through the use of children’s names.
I loved the ideas the article had to point out names to children, emphasize the purpose of the names, and encourage children to recognize their own names. Specifically using the attendance routine of signing in each morning. Parents and/or teachers can help children find their names on the sign-in list and the child can make a mark, draw a picture, or write his/her name to indicate their presence each day.
The article written by Elizabeth Kirk and Patricia Clark, Beginning With Names: Using Children's Names To Facilitate Early Literacy Learning is full of ideas to use in your classroom with students who are beginning to read and write.
It is true that while children are still in the exploritory phase of emergent literacy they take what they know and what is familiar to them and use that as a starting point and continually practice it. I've seen it with students that I've had the opportunity to work with and I noticed I too did that myself when I was growing up. I noticed in many of the books that I had growing up, I had my name or some form of my name written in the pages. I wrote my name on many pages and I could tell the earlier phases where I had some letters in my name, but not all of them and they were not correctly written. Then ultimately when I learned to write my name correctly, I could see it also written on the pages in the books. Naturally, as I was learning about symbols and print, I would explore with what I had known, which was the letters in my name.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your article and it reminded me of an experience when I student taught. I was in a first grade classroom and my cooperating teacher used the students' names to support several lessons and activities in her classroom. A few months in to the start of the year, each day, a new student's name would be shared. We would read the new name together and sing the name game song "Beth Beth Bo Beth..". Then that student would share some things about themself with the class and the class would ask that student some questions to learn more about their new classmate. This part was recognizing the student of the day, but it was also giving the students the opportunity to socially interact and speak with one another.
Then we would use that student's name to review letter name and sound skills. This became a mini-phonics lesson in itself. The students where asked to point out things they noticed in the name. Such as the vowels, the consonants, the capital letter at the start of the name, any double consonants, or digraphs. Many students would note if they had any of those same letters in their names. We used to leave all of the previous names up on the wall as we added new names. This allowed the students to compare and contrast the names. They used to cluster the names based upon commonalities, such as the same beginning letters or if they noticed that several names all had a -th in them. Sometimes the teacher would sort the names and ask the students to tell her what her rule was; why were they grouped the way they were? The students were also given the opportunity on occasion to sort them and their classmates had to explain why they were sorted the way they were. As time progressed, we would alphabetize the names. The students in the class had access to these names during centers because they were always magnetized to the air unit, which was low to the ground for them to access.
I noticed that when it came time to do the Name Game Activites, the students loved it and were always engaged. I also noticed how frequently they wanted to use those names and mimic our activites, that we did together as a class, during their center time. I believe this works so well because it is a way to personalize a lesson or lessons and make it about the students. They always love being part of what you are teaching and what they are learning!