Running head: STUDENTS’ WRITING AND NAME RECOGNITION

Students’ Writing and Name Recognition

Alyssa Aniano

Dr. Harlan

Early Childhood Education Internship

Action Research Report

Students’ Writing and Name Recognition 2

Students’ Wiring and Name Recognition

At Resica Elementary, in the Head Start Program, our classroom theme is letters. Many

of the children in my classroom are going to Kindergarten. To get the children prepared, for

moving up we have been practicing writing their names. For my action research, I have decided

to study the following: how does practice writing their names every other morning, play

interactive games, and do crafts to improve the students’ writing? Through my research, I will

see how this approach impacts the children’s ability to write their names. I will only be focusing

on the children moving on to Kindergarten, as the teacher enforces writing the most with these

students.

At the beginning of my internship, only three students were able to write their name. Two

of the students were twins, I will call these students Sophie and Jacob. The other student is

Lauren. The rest of the students were close or could write the first letter of their name. Isabelle

could write I, S, L, L, A, but skipped the letters in the middle. Also, Isabelle was not able to

write in a straight line, her letters were everywhere on the page in her journal. Carmine could not

write one letter of his name at all the first day of my research. Mykaela and Zaiden were able to

write their first letter and were attempting the rest. Avay could write all the letters of her name

but she did not write them in order. Bryce was quite close to writing his name but often got

frustrated and gave up. Lastly, there was Adonis, he had the most difficult time writing his name.

This was due to his lack of attendances and a few months leave of absence. Besides, Adonis

absences, he had many behaviors which prohibited his learning. This is a baseline for my action

research.

Now that one has a baseline for where the students are coming from, it is important to

know what skills it takes to write your name. Firstly, a student needs the fine motor skills to hold

a pencil. Some children seem to be naturals at holding a pencil while others need more guidance.
Students’ Writing and Name Recognition 3

Using a gripper on the student’s pencil is an assistive technology for student’s to correctly hold

their pencil. There are other ways to practice fine motor skills as well. I made a fine motor

exercise for my students that allows them to match the letters and in addition the students

practice putting the letter in a small hole in a box, I have provided (look at Figures 1 & 2).

Next, student’s will need to know upper and lower-case letters. The students should know the

that their name and other names always start with a capital letter. Lastly, students must know

how to spell their name. There are songs and chants to make spelling their name fun to learn.

Once the student has these basic skills, there are ready to begin writing their name. One

activity the teachers and I used for the students to practice writing their name, is writing in a

journal. We started off daily and decreased as needed. The students started off strong trying to

write their names, but, become unenthused just writing in the journal. At such a tender age

school must be fun, writing is supposed to be fun, so the students will keep learning. Some

students were provided with dots to trace their names if needed. At times instead of using a blank

piece of paper, we gave the student worksheets. On the worksheet was their name spelled out

once, next it was in dots for them to trace, and then, there were three blank lines for them to try

on their own. For any other assignments, we always had the students attempt to write their name

on the top of the page, just for practice. We made crafts as well. For instance, we had two trays

out on the table, the first tray had all the students’ names, the other had upper case and lower-

case letters. The students had to find their names, and the correct letters of their name, starting

with a capital letter. Once the students completed that, they glued them to the large piece of

paper. Some days we used playdough and had the children spell their names out with that. I

made sensory bags with hair gel and glitter and had the children trace their letters in the bags.

We had a letter scavenger hunt to the hallways, we split into three groups and the children had to
Students’ Writing and Name Recognition 4

find a word for each letter of the alphabet. During morning meeting, we had a poster will the

letters on it and the children needed to point to the letter of their name as an exit ticket to start the

next activity. The teachers and myself made learning their names enjoyable and all this impacted

the students learning.

The majority of the children grew so much with these games, crafts, and journals. As I

collected data on my students I loved to see them learn the next letter of their name and starting

to write in a straight line or writing their letters in order. I compiled enough data over the

semester to create a bar graph to show you the students’ progress. Isabelle learned to write all the

letters of her name. Carmine began writing C, A, and M. Mykaela and Bryce learned to write

their whole name over the last few months and just needs to work on writing more legible.

Zaiden also showed big improvement, he went from writing his first letter to his whole name.

Avay can now write her letters in order and started working on her last name. Sophie and Jacob

also learned their last name and are writing straight and small. Lauren knows her full name and is

on her way to writing nice and neat. Adonis is writing the first letter of his name now and we

have to keep working with him and his attendance to school. I am so proud of all my students for

working so hard to get where they are today.

Although, the students all made growth, the children that were not only working at

school, but working at home made the advancement. In my own classroom, I would push the

parents to work with students at home. I would provide homework and projects for the families

to do at home and bring to class, while emailing the parents other resources for learning. If the

parents’ see my effort to help the students’ development, I believe it will encourage them to do

the same at home. Perhaps the parents can keep a journal at home as well and motivate their
Students’ Writing and Name Recognition 5

children to practice. In my classroom, I would also give more positive reinforcement to my

students to inspire them to write, and study.

In conclusion, I take so much from my experiences at my internship. I can conclude that

practice, crafts and games do improve students’ writing as my research question suggests. This

is one of the many effective teaching strategies one can use to help students’. If the students’

attendance was stronger I believe my data would increase. For my next action research, I would

like the students to be more a part of the process. The student and myself would set goals, maybe

for the week or the month and if they reach those goals, I would offer some type of positive

reinforcement so my student continues to show development. The excitement I got when my

students began writing more and more is beyond compare and I know this will only continue as I

get into my career. The more entertaining and engaging learning is the more students’ will

benefit.
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Students' Progress

Adonis

Jacob

Sophie

Avay

Lauren

Zaiden

Bryce

Mykaela

Carmine

Isabelle

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
End of the Semester Beginning of the Semester
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Figure 1

Figure 2