Child Stages: Preschool 4 Years (Child Development Information) - Child Development

4 Years

Children who are 4 have had enough personal experience to master the simple concepts in life, and now enter the phase of their development where they learn to apply and build on them. Putting sentences together into paragraphs and paragraphs into stories is just one of the ways they demonstrate their new language abilities. At the same time, their activities and play also become more complex. Be sure to take a moment to marvel as your child spends this year transitioning from being a 3-year-old preschooler to a five-year-old school-age child.

MILESTONES
Your child is undoubtedly a unique individual with his own personality, talents, and "issues." For this reason alone, it would be next to impossible to describe all 4-year-olds in one broad generalization. Some are shy and others are outgoing. A few start kindergarten at this age, while most will wait until they turn 5 or even 6. That said, there are some basic milestones that most 4-year-olds reach some time during this year.

4-year-olds:
Have good self-help skills. By the time they turn 4, most children are not only able to dress themselves and put their own shoes on, but buttoning and zipping are much more likely to be a snap than they used to be. And best of all, this is the age that most children start to actually pride themselves on independent dressing. Shoe-tying is probably still going to be a challenge, not only because of the skill involved, but also because Velcro-fastened shoes seem to have taken over the children's shoe market, giving kids far less opportunity (or need) to practice.

Get around with ease. This includes not only riding a tricycle, running, jumping, and climbing, but also hopping and balancing on one foot, as well as walking up stairs like an adult, alternating feet and only putting one on each step.

Make good use of their language skills. During this year, you're likely to notice that your child masters language well enough to put sentences together into full stories, and just generally talk your ear off. And now that your child is likely to have mastered the use of pronouns (I, me, you, we, etc.), be forewarned that you're also likely to find that she is very skilled at using them to ask a whole lot of questions.

Know their colors and shapes.

Draw more detailed pictures of people. Stop to look at your child's drawings, and you're sure to find that they have become much less like abstract art, involving more attention to detail. Pictures of people, for example, are less crude and often involve more than just a few body parts.

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