It is crucial to invest time in learning our students' names to demonstrate our care and commitment. By taking a student aside and asking for the correct pronunciation of their name, we send a powerful message about their significance to us. While it may require multiple attempts to get it right, the effort is worthwhile. In the beginning of the year I make sure we share our names over and over again. I do an activity where we break our names up into syllables and go over how to phonetically say each name. By the end of the first week, we all know each others names. It is important I invest my time doing this because I am modeling to the students how important it is to make sure you are pronouncing someones name correctly.
