ECE 332: Child Development
Marilyn Gomez
May 30, 2011
Abstract “The years from 3 through 5 are often referred to as the preschool years” (Henniger, pg. 107). Preschool is a place where the setting is geared towards mimicking a regular school setting but exposes the young child for the first time to a school. Preschool takes away some of the stress of strictly learning academics and focuses on developing the child's skills in cognitive, motor, social, emotional, and language developments. Preschool encourages children to personally and individually meet their milestones of development.
The Preschool Stage of Development
In looking at the stages of a preschool development, the characteristics/milestones must be defined. There are some activities that can be provided that will enhance a preschooler’s cognitive, motor, social, emotional, and language developments. A detailed explanation of the activities will give the reasoning to how and why the activities will enhance a child’s development.
“Every child grows and develops at his or her own pace. Still, child development tends to follow a fairly predictable path” (MFMER, 2010). In language skills, children in the age group of 3 through 5 years old learn from 250 to 500 or more words. Answer simple questions, and understand rhyming words. They can speak sentences of three to four words through compound and complex sentences.
In social skills, children in preschool can become more imaginative, cooperate, make friends, share, express feelings, show affection, ask why questions, become more independent, begin to make impressionable markings, count numbers, recognize letters of the alphabet, and can problem solve with teacher guidance.
In physical skills, children in this age group can kick, jump, run, and maneuver tricycles, walk up and down stairs without falling, keep balance, hop on one foot, manipulate hand toys like cube links or legos, can dress and undress