learning to write his own name

About 2 years ago when Renzo was 3.5 years old, I wrote a post about "learning to write his own name" on his blog, sharing our excitement when Renzo started to write his name in English. We totally didn't plan about when should we teach Rynus to write, well if ever we have plans, I guess I would use Renzo as the best benchmark and start to teach Rynus when he's 3.5 years old. But to our biggest surprise, after Rynus finished writing 1 to 20 & 100, A - Z independently before bedtime this evening, I tried to encourage him to write his own name, since he knows how to write all his letters though he still needs to work on his handwriting. And he managed to do it in less than 20 minutes!!

I first wrote "Rynus" on a piece of paper and asked him to read, he recognized that's his name right away. Actually for the past few weeks, he has been sharing with us about his classmates' names by repeating often: "A is for Adele, K is for Kyler, Z is for Zander, G is for Gabriel, J is for Jovina, etc, etc..". So maybe that's why it wasn't hard for him to figure out that R-Y-N-U-S is Rynus, his name!

I then asked him to try and write the word Rynus. He continued writing for at least 10 to 15 minutes and refused to let me teach or help him. He kept saying, "no mummy, I can do it!" when I was trying to guide him by spelling the letters out. On the 3rd or 4th try, I was very certain that he could already remember how to spell his name.

In no time he could write his name nicely and he was as proud as punch when we praised him in joy.

I am not sure if he could still remember how to spell/write his name tomorrow. But I am very pleased to realize that he is willing to learn and he's extremely confident and independent. He couldn't even grip his pencil properly but he puts in great efforts to make sure he applies enough pressure to make his lines smoother. Well done and way to go  my little boy!