Sometime before he starts kindergarten, your young child should learn how to write his name. There are some steps he needs to master before he can write legibly, and some activities you can provide to help him along the way.
The young child can recognize words before he can physically write them. His eyesight isn’t quite 20/20 yet, though, so all words should be written fairly large. If you’re sitting really close to him, two inches is probably okay. Smaller than that, and you’re making it much harder for him than it needs to be, and may cause him eye-strain.
The small muscles in his hands and fingers are not fully developed, and his coordination is off. So anything you can do to give him lots of practice using those small muscles can only help. Let him play with playdough, string beads, lace shoestrings through a lacing card, play with legos, and cut with child safety scissors while supervised, to name a few.
Next, teach him to recognize his name. Print his name in large block letters – one capital letter, and the rest lower-case letters, the way he will see it written in school. Do not write it all in caps. Put his name on his bedroom door, at his place at the table, where he hangs his coat – any place you can think of putting it. You can start teaching him to read other words, too, if you like – any word that he finds interesting- print them in large letters on 4×6 index cards.
Next, have him roll playdough snakes and have him form the letters that make his name. You can print his name on cardboard and let him “trace” the name with playdough snakes. Later, let him make his name without the tracing card.
Spritz shaving cream on a cookie sheet, and let him draw his name in the cream. Supervise him, if you don’t want shaving cream everywhere, but this activity may amuse him for 15 to 20 minutes, and it’s educational, too. I let my granddaughter do similar supervised educational activities at the kitchen table while I do dishes or fix a meal. She’s having fun, she’s close by, and I know what she’s up to.
Let him fingerpaint his name, using a large sheet of paper and his favorite color of paint.
Let him draw his name in wet sand or mud.
Let him try to write his name with sidewalk chalk.
Finally, you can print off his name at a website like Kid Zone, and let him trace his name over and over. If you slip the paper in a page protector or laminate it, and get a dry erase marker, he can practice it and wipe it clean to reuse.
He’ll eventually graduate from dry-erase markers, to thick crayons, to pencils. But don’t rush him to writing with a pencil too soon. Let him develop the coordination first, and experience success at every step along the way.
Lorelei
For further reading, you may wish to read:
How to Teach Your Baby to Read
Reading Readiness
Play Areas for Encouraging Creativity
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When was the last time you were stuck in traffic with your toddler or preschool child, when he just did not want to be in his car seat any more? Maybe you had a head-ache, or weren’t feeling great yourself. Maybe it was getting hot inside, and the air conditioner wasn’t working properly. Or maybe the opposite was true – it was the middle of winter and the windows were too foggy to see out of? Nearly all of us can recall at least one time when we were sorry the automobile was ever invented. 
Get a toy that has moving parts attached to a bigger part. Sometimes a smaller version of the tracking toy will work – the wooden beads on a curved metal bar that you push around. They aren’t that much fun compared to how much they cost, but if someone gave you one, you can keep it in the car. Another good car toy are lacing cards. You can buy them or make them yourself. Cut out a variety of shapes from bright colored cardboard and punch holes around the edge. The child then “sews” it up with a shoe lace. This is great small-motor control practice, developing finger dexterity that is so necessary before learning to hold a pencil and write. When your child graduates beyond lacing cards, then get plain plastic canvas, strings of yarn and blunt-tipped darning needles. You’d be amazed at what your child can create!
Fourth: your imagination. Your child really just wants your attention. Most temper tantrums are attention-getters, even if the attention they get – in the form of discipline – is not the kind of attention they really wanted. When your toddler or preschooler is getting fractious and the toys aren’t working, the snacks are gone, and you still can’t just return home, then it’s time to play a game. This can be really challenging if you are also driving! Be very, very careful! But especially if someone else is in the car with you, engage your child in any sort of “look out the window and what do you see” game. You can play “look for something red!” or “count the cows”. Or “find an airplane”. Older preschoolers can play games involving the alphabet – finding certain letters of the alphabet on the billboards. We used to play that you had to find an A, then a B, and so forth – the first one to get to Z wins! I can remember always getting stuck on “Q” until I learned to read and could spot a liquor store at a hundred paces. But if your preschooler is too young to find all the letters of the alphabet, just find the letters that are in his name. Or if you’re doing the lesson plans, you can just look for the letter of the week.
. My kids tended to really enjoy the “odd” family-only parties better. When our middle daughter was a young teenager, she went to Martinsville to see a car race with her dad. She’ll never forget that, but I can guarantee she doesn’t remember the traditional birthday party she had when she was eight, with playmates, party games and cake.
