ABSTRACT. Name writing skills have been viewed as a part of children's emergent literacy skills. Name writing is a meaningful and valuable activity and indicator of children's developmental maturity. The purpose of this study is to investigate name writing skills of children attending early childhood programs and the variables related to their name writing skills. The participants were 269 children aged between 3 -6 years enrolled in early childhood programs. Participant children were asked to write their names on a blank paper and their writing was scored on a 9-point scale.Findings of this research indicated that only 17.8 % of children were able to write their names and their age, gender and maternal education and income affected on their name writing skills. Key Words: Name writing skills, early childhood, emergent literacy SUMMARY Purpose and Significance:The term emergent literacy is used to describe the pre-literacy skills that children learn prior to beginning to formal school education. These foundational skills include oral language skills and code-related skills involving print concepts, alphabet knowledge, emergent writing, and phonological awareness. Research studies have found that emergent literacy skills are strong predictors of a child's later reading ability (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Name writing skills have been viewed as a part of children's emergent literacy skills. A child's name is among the first things that children write. Name writing is a meaningful and valuable activity and indicator of the children's developmental maturity (Haney, 2002). Examining children's name writing skills will extend our understandings of children emergent literacy skills and contribute literature based related to children's writing development. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the name writing skills of children attending early childhood programs and the factors related to their name writing skills.

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