purposeful play
Name Recognition Letter Hop
Literacy activity for kids
Name Recognition Letter Hop is a super fun and simple way to combine movement and literacy skills-including your child’s ability to recognize and spell their own name.
Why are name recognition activities so important for kids to engage in?
Well, there are many reasons why.
For starters, children first learn the letters and sounds from the words and names that are most important to them. Their own name being the most important!
Meaning, children will typically first learn the letters and sounds in their own name.
Through name recognition activities children are able to begin building strong letter and sound connections-which will help them create a solid literacy foundation.
They will begin to understand that letters, sounds and words have meaning.
Name Recognition Letter Hop is a fantastic way to boost your child’s name recognition ability!
Once your child has mastered learning how to recognize and spell their own name-you can use this simple literacy game to teach other words and names that have significance to them.
Use names of important people in their lives as well as words of their favorite things!
Example-if your child loves trains-use words associated with trains to teach letter, sound and word recognition.
If your child loves butterflies-use words associated with butterflies such as wings, bug, insect, caterpillar, pretty, fly, cocoon, flower and nectar.
This letter hop game is incredibly versatile and can be used to teach an infinite number of words and skills all while keeping your child active, moving and engaged at home!
materials
Note: You can also use paper plates and tape them to the floor instead of using spot markers.
purpose
Promotes name recognition skills
Strengthens spelling skills
Reinforces letter and sound recognition skills
Strengthens gross motor skills
Fun way to exercise
Combines movement and literacy for a powerful learning experience
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directions
Name Recognition Letter Hop
Using a dry erase marker, write the letters of your child’s name on the spot markers (or paper plates).
One letter per shape.
Be sure to use a dry erase marker so you can easily wipe the shape clean and use again!
Write random letters on the remaining spot markers.
Use a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters.
Now it’s time to set out the spot markers.
First, lay out the shapes with the letters of your child’s name.
Be sure that you lay the shapes in the correct order and that they are close enough so your child is able to jump from one to the next.
Next, fill in the spaces surrounding the name letter shapes with the other the remaining spot markers.
Now it’s time to play!
Explain to your child that they will be trying to “cross the pond” by jumping on the letters of their name in the correct order!
“Crossing the Pond” means getting from the start to the finish without stepping on anything but the shape spot markers.
Once they get the hang of it-challenge them to do it faster!
You can even time them to see how much they’ve improved!
For younger children still mastering letter recognition-use this activity to reinforce those skills by simply saying a letter and asking your child to jump to it-continuing until they “cross the pond”.
For children mastering letter sounds-Have your child say the sound of each letter they hop to.
Try using this activity with other high frequency words and names that are important to your child.
Have your child move “across the pond” in different ways- Example: Hop three times on each letter of the word/name they are spelling.
Challenge your child to spell the name/word backwards! Have them “Cross the Pond” by starting at the finish and hopping their way to the start.
