Developmental Stages Guidelines

Typical 3 Year Olds Area of Development Growth Patterns Area of Development In the Classroom  Less top heavy than toddlers  Improved finger dexterity  Move with greater sureness allows them to put together  Greater abilities to run, climb, simple puzzles and perform large muscle  Begins to hold crayons with activities fingers instead of fists  Can ride a tricycle or pump a  Can make balls and snakes out swing of clay Vision and Fine Motor  Develops growing strength,  Undress without assistance Ability dexterity, and control needed  Fatigues easily if much hand

to use tools such as scissors coordination is needed

 Improved hand‐eye  Begins to show a preference

coordination in building with for being right‐handed or left‐ Physical blocks or putting together handed

puzzles  Can jump off low steps or objects, and climbs stairs with alternating feet, sing hand rail Gross Motor Ability for balance  Is able to walk in a line, move quickly around obstacles, run at an even pace, and turn and stop well  Can walk without watching his or her feet, walks backwards, and can gallop with speed

 Can better coordinate balance with the movements of legs and arms  When jumping, has difficulty landing on two feet at the same time  Stands on one foot unsteadily, watches feet when walking on a low balance beam  Demonstrates increasing ability to coordinate movements in throwing, catching, kicking, and bouncing balls  Need familiar adults nearby  Begin to have real friendships for security as they explore with other children and play  Shows progress in expressing  Begins to develop and express feelings, needs, and opinions a sense of individuality and in difficult situations personal preferences o May still fall apart  Labels own feelings and those under stress of others based on facial Social Emotional  Gives simple things to peers expression or tone of voice Behavior who are in need, upset, or Social Emotional  Understands at least on basic angry level, that feelings have causes  Accepts compromise when  Continues to learn simple resolving conflicts if it is alternatives to aggressive suggested by adults ways of dealing with conflicts  Shows interest in other children and copies what they do Language  Learn lots of new words 

 Make major improvements in pronunciation  Communicate in simple sentences and are refining their use of grammar  Begin to initiate conversations  Able to listen to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems  Speech is understandable  Listens attentively to age‐ most of the time appropriate stories  Indicates negatives by  Likes to look at books and may inserting “no” or “not” before pretend to read a simple noun or verb phrase  Enjoys stories with riddles,  Answers “What are you guessing, and “suspense” doing?” , “What is this?”, and  Can put together simple Cognitive Cognitive Growth “Where? puzzles and can understand  Thinks more systematically that a whole object can be  Continues to be more flexible separated into parts in problem‐solving and  Can identify and describe thinking through alternatives objects that are the “same”  Improve their logical reasoning and “different” skills

Typical 4 Year Olds Area of Development Growth Patterns Area of Development In the Classroom  Tend to focus visually on  Not ready for close visual faraway objects activity  Often clumsy o Should do little paper  Fine motor skills not well and pencil work that developed focuses on mechanical o Hold pencil in whole skills Vision and Fine Motor fist o Can boost literacy skills Ability o Use arm, hand, fingers by scribbling and using

as single unit inventive spelling

o May hold towards one  Unable to switch smoothly

end between near and far focus;

o Light stroke should not be asked to copy

 Need lots of physical activity from board

Physical  Able to sit for only short  Use their whole hand to write;

periods printing usually large

 Awkward with writing, and

other small movements

 Learn more through large

muscle activity and play

 Need climbing apparatus on

playground Gross Motor Ability  In physical education, usually enjoy tumbling  Ready for pre‐writing  Finger painting or painting with brushes at stand‐up easels gives excellent practice  Friendly, talkative Social Emotional  Learn from modeling Social Emotional Behavior

 Love being with friends, may o Need chances to only work near not with a practice new behavior friend  Easily redirected from  Not overly dependent on inappropriate behavior adults and can make decisions o Teacher language is on their own interests, but very important in need adult advice helping children use  Need adult help finding words language instead of to express needs physical means  Love “jobs”  Love learning and working  Older fours are sometimes together fearful or worried and may o Younger fours may play have nightmares next to o “Who’s the boss?” is often major developmental issue o Can learn basic mediation skills, but teacher saying “It’s the rule “ works wonders  Tend to roughhouse on the playground o Need teacher redirection and modeling of appropriate behavior

 Very talkative  Love being read to Language  Language skills of four year olds progress rapidly  Expand vocabularies daily

 Can follow multi‐step directions and understand explanations given when they can see  Frequently initiate conversations, less likely to change subject of conversation to areas of personal interest and are getting better at sharing personal experiences  Have short attention spans;  Love being read to move quickly from one thing  Love to do their own reading to next of picture books  Learn best by moving large  Constantly reading their muscles environment  Need to play and explore; love o Labeling objects that dress‐up and drama children frequently see  Enjoy activities that use music, or use gives them rhythm, repeating patterns, opportunities to Cognitive and other simple learning Cognitive Growth practice strategies  Need many hands‐on experiences o All classroom areas should have manipulatives  Ready to practice counting through “real” job  Move quickly from one thing to another

o Hard to stay in one area of classroom for an extended time Can learn responsibilities that are carefully taught but need the teacher to model expectations

Typical 5 Year Olds Area of Development Growth Patterns Area of Development In the Classroom  Focus visually on objects close  Still developing left‐to‐right at hand Vision and Fine Motor visual tracking  Need lots of physical activity, Ability o Tend to focus on one including free play word at time when  Better control of running, reading jumping, other large motor o Often need to use movements pointer or finger to o Still awkward with keep place writing, handicrafts,  Still have difficulty copying other fine motor from the board movements  Occasionally reverse letters  Pace themselves well, resting and numbers before exhausted o Teachers can help by Physical  Holds pencil with three‐ accepting reversals fingered, pincer‐like grasp without comment  Often falls out of chairs rather than correcting sideways  Ready for an introduction to manuscript printing o Not able to stay within lines  Find it hard to space letters, numbers, and words  Using a finger as a separator helps  As at four, continue to need a Gross Motor Ability great deal of active outdoor and indoor activity

o Enjoy structured games such as Duck, Duck, Goose  Likes to help, cooperate,  Can work at quiet time, sitting follow rules, and “be good”, activities for 15‐20 minutes at wants adult approval a time  Needs routines, along with  Often need their teacher’s consistent rules and discipline release to move to the next o Respond well to clear task and simple  Feel safe with consistent expectations guidelines and carefully Social Emotional Social Emotional  Dependent on authority, but planned periods Behavior also have trouble seeing things  Express thoughts through from another’s viewpoint action, need opportunities to  Need verbal permission from play in housekeeping or adults, before doing dramatic play areas something  Learn and practice language skills through teacher modeling and directed role play  Literal, using and interpreting words in their usual or most basic sense  Express themselves in few words  Often do not talk about school Language happenings at home  Express fantasy more through actions and less through words than at four  Think out loud‐talk their thoughts

 Like to copy and repeat  Learn best through repetition activities o Like to repeat stories,  Often see only one way to do songs, games things o Need predictable  Bound cognitively by their schedules senses  Some become stuck in o Not ready to repetitive behavior for fear of understand abstract making mistakes when trying concepts such as something new “fairness” o For example, always  Ascribe life and movement to drawing hearts and Cognitive Cognitive Growth inanimate objects such as rainbows stuffed animals  Learn best through active  Learn best through active play exploration of materials and hands‐on activities  Seldom able to see things  Think intuitively rather than from another point of view logically  Think out loud before doing o For example, “It’s windy when the trees shake so it must be the shaking of the trees that makes the wind.”

Older Five Year Olds Area of Development Growth Patterns Area of Development In the Classroom  Tend to be restless and tire  Print less neatly and with quickly more reversals than earlier in  Awkwardly perform tasks the year requiring fine motor skills  Grasp pencil very firmly;  Vary pencil grasp placing pencil grips on pencils  Tilt their head to non‐ Vision and Fine Motor encourages relaxation dominant side when writing Ability  Reverses letters and numbers  Complain that their hand gets with increasing frequency tired from holding their pencil  May find reading and writing Physical  Often stand up to work activities frustrating if not closely related to their interests  Need a good deal of activity Gross Motor Ability and relaxed free play outside because attention is not always focused in a gym class  Tire quickly; sometimes need shorter work periods than young fives  Oppositional; not sure  Need consistent rules and whether to be good or discipline even more than naughty earlier in the year  Insecure with feelings and  Because children are testing Social Emotional Social Emotional tentative in actions limits more, harsh discipline Behavior  Complain, test authority and (especially for mistakes) can limits, and strike out with be devastating; they respond temper tantrums better to frequent reminders and redirection

 Behave wonderfully at home and terribly at school, or vise versa  Equivocate, switching answers from “yes” to “no” and vice versa  Begin giving more elaborate  answers to questions  Frequently make auditory reversals Language o Answer first what they heard last  Often read out loud even when asked to read silently  Begin to try new activities  Still use language to initiate more easily action; begin to explain in  Make lots of mistakes and more detail recognize some of them  Need many avenues‐building  Learn well from direct with blocks, painting, etc‐to experience express what they know Cognitive Cognitive Growth  Need time to try their own ways of doing things even those these ways may not prove productive  Crave constant validation of their initiative

Typical 6 Year Olds Area of Development Growth Patterns Area of Development In the Classroom  Good visual tracking from left  Will copy from the board but to right find it very difficult  More of their fingers as tools o Some schools use  Noisy and sloppy Vision and Fine Motor personalized  In a hurry Ability whiteboards o Speed is a hallmark of  When writing, find spacing six and staying on the line difficult  Often fall backwards out of  Ability to track visually from their chairs left to right readies them for Physical  Learning to distinguish left reading instruction from right  Comfortable with a busy level  Because they’re teething, they of noise and activity often chew on pencils,  Often work standing fingernails, hair, books, etc Gross Motor Ability  Can produce products of  Tire easily; frequently ill higher quality when  Enjoy being active both encouraged to work more outdoors and in the gym slowly or when teachers limit the number of complexity of tasks  Want to be first  Use tantrums, teasing,  Competitive; enthusiastic bossing, complaining, and  Sometimes “poor sports” or tattling to try out relationships dishonest with authority o Invent rules to help Social Emotional o Learn best when adults Social Emotional themselves win Behavior understand but do not  Anxious to do well excessively tolerate  Thrive on encouragement this behavior  Tremendous capacity for  Extremely sensitive enjoyment

o likes surprises and o An ounce of treats encouragement may  Can be bossy, teasing, or be all they need to get critical of others through a difficult  Easily upset when hurt situation  Care a great deal about friends o Severe criticism can o May have a best friend truly injure them  Less influenced by happenings  Highly competitive at home than at school o Can overdo the need to win and be first o Do better when teachers take the competitive edge off games used for learning  Ready to try taking on individual and group responsibility  Enjoy explaining things o Sharing about things they like helps to develop language skills Language  Use boisterous and enthusiastic language  Love jokes and guessing games  Tend to complain frequently  Learn best through discovery  Enjoy and learn from games of o Love asking questions all sorts; poems, riddles, and o Trying out new games songs delight them and teach Cognitive Cognitive Growth and ideas more effectively than  Better understand spatial and workbooks functional relationships

 Very ambitious and motivated  Experience an artistic to learn explosion o May choose projects o Seriously experiment that are too hard with clay, paints,  Enjoy the process more than dancing, coloring, book the product making, weaving, and  Love to color and paint singing  Engage in more elaborate o Nee to feel their cooperative dramatic play attempts are valued than at five o There is no right or  Increasingly interested in wrong way to computers approach art  Beginning to understand past o Risk‐takering now and present and also how and enhances later artistic why things happen expression and  Beginning to be interested in competence skill and technique for their  Proudly produce a great own sake quality of work but are  Like to “work”; enjoy reading unconcerned with quality and writing o Whatever the activity‐ whether academics, clean‐up or snack o Delight in the doing, especially for themselves  Need social studies content connected to here and now o Find history difficult unless it is closely associated to present

 Enjoy and learn much from field trips followed by representational activities

Sources: For Typical 3 Year Olds: Child Development Tracker, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/three/mathematics.html and Child Development Stages, Wikipedia, http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/three/mathematics.html For Typical 4 Year Olds: Child Development Tracker, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/parents/childdevelopmenttracker/three/mathematics.html and Wood, Chip. Yardsticks Children in the Classroom Ages 4‐14. 3rd edition Turner Falls, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children, Inc., 2007 For Typical 5 Year Olds, Older Five Year Olds, For Typical 6 Year Olds: Wood, Chip. Yardsticks Children in the Classroom Ages 4‐14. 3rd edition Turner Falls, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children, Inc., 2007