Early Childhood Developmental Milestones

(Ages 4-5 years old)

Physical Development

By this time children are most curious about the world around them, they are little individuals, with their own agendas, teaching children to work in groups and with others on a one on one experience is very important, this is when children truly begin showing signs of empathy (understanding how others feel about things). Children at this age begin to lose their baby look, and take on the features that are more like little adults. At the age of 4 - 5 years old your child should grown about 3 5 pounds per year, weighing an average of 32 40 pounds and is about 40 to 45 inches tall, and requires about 1700 calories per day (Allen and Marotz, 2010). Also according to Allen and Marotz (2010), Children at this age can walk a straight line, on a chalk line or piece of tape on the floor; they can hop on one foot, climb ladders and trees, and jump over objects that are 5 to 6 inches high.

Language Development

Children at this age use prepositions such as on, in, and under, and can have an extended vocabulary (with about 1500 words). A child at this age can tell stories, and use functional definitions such as: a cry is to a baby, as roar is to a lion (Allen and Marotz, 2010).

Children at this are practice their conversational skills, children of this age often use narratives as a method of conversing, in other words, they tell stories of past experiences. Children in preschool adapt to social expectations, and show improvements in phonological awareness (Berk, 2013).

According to Charlesworth (2014), children modify their speech to match that of the listener, for example a child will typically use longer sentences to speak to an adult than they do when they are speaking with a another child.

Cognitive Development

For children at this age, language becomes more complex, words are not just symbols, which are associated with objects, such as cup means a cylinder that you drink from, or ball is any round object, they now have specific meanings associated with a specific type of object. For example a moon is a moon, and not a ball, even though it is round, but a basketball, a baseball and a football are all balls, even though they are different sizes and shapes. Childrens concepts of the world around them are also changing; children develop critical thinking skills, such as using two triangles to form a rectangle, or sorting objects based on two dimensions, such as shape and size. Children can also identify order of things, first, second, third and so on. And Root count to 10 and mix numbers up to 100 (Allen and Marotz, 2010).

Atypical Development

Some things to watch for that you would want to talk to your childs primary care person such as doctor, clinic or nurse about are, if the child does not alternate feet when going up and down stairs, speaks in a monotone voice (the pitch does not rise or fall for emphasis) is unable to follow a simple 3 step instruction, cannot use 5 works in a sentence cohesively, or unable to use scissors, or other skills that require the use of fine motor development.

Strategies to Help Families Influence Learning and Development

Read to your children often, ask your child to look at the picture in a book and tell you the story, provide materials such as paper, writing tools, old magazines, and scraps of fabric for cutting, plan projects that allow your child to measure, shape, and mix things like cookie dough or science projects. Play corn-hole games, or games in which the child must toss an object into a designated area (Allen & Marotz, 2010).