Child Development

I've just been seen a blog post about some PDFs from Born learning that show child development from birth to 5 years. There are ten PDFs from birth to 5 years that helps answer the questions all parents ask - is my child on track to reach their milestones? They also include lots of ideas to help your child's development.

Chatter Matters - Talking Tots

This is the second of two articles on language development from Lisa at Talking Tots with some ideas of what to expect at each stage of language development and ideas to get your children talking.

Being a parent to a newborn is a worrying business – there are so many things to worry about. Is my baby healthy? Is he too hot, too cold, too big, too small? Most of all – is he doing what he should be doing?

When it comes to your baby’s speech, it’s hard to say. Different children acquire language skills at vastly different rates - a child’s first word might happen before his first birthday, or not until his second. So how do you know if your child has a language delay – or is just choosing his words carefully?

“There really are no hard and fast rules about speech,” says Tracey Park, co-founder of Talking Tots, a pre-school activity group that focuses on developing communication skills and confidence. As an experienced paediatric speech and language therapist, Tracey knows that each child develops differently. “It’s rarely a cause for concern,” she says. “A child who talks late or uses fewer words than other children will almost always catch up within a few years.”

Providing your child meets some of the milestones provided below, they are probably developing at the expected rate. However, if your child doesn’t show any of the communication skills expected, Tracey advises parents to talk to their health visitor. “It may just be that your child is working on other things and will catch up later, but if there is a problem, getting support early is vital because your child is less likely to fall behind.”

Six Months-12 Months
At around this age, your baby may turn when they hear your voice, or smile if you talk to her. If you’re nearby, she’ll sometimes make eye contact and will probably begin ‘talking’ to you by ‘babbling’ and making a variety of sounds – she’s testing out what her voice can do!

12 Months – 18 Months
Some time around your first birthday, you may hear your baby’s first word – usually this will be a sort of food, a family member or a pet. However, your baby isn’t just communicating using words. You’ll probably also see her pointing to things she wants or using gestures like holding their hands up when she wants to be held. At this age, most babies understand more than they can express, so you might see your baby start to recognise her own name, or look at objects when you ask if she can see them, or even point to them.

18 – 24 Months
By two years of age, most children will have a handful of recognisable words (even if you’re the only one who understands them), and most of these will be words that are particularly close to his heart – up, milk, Mummy, Daddy. There may be some words he’s just learning, which you’ll recognise – it’s common for children to say “ba” for ball, for example, or “bic” for biscuit.

2-3 Years
Between the ages of two and three, your toddler’s favourite word may well be “NO!” This negativity is all part of your child’s desire to assert his independence, and at the same time, you might notice she’s beginning to refer to herself by name (many toddlers will call themselves by name long before using the “I” pronoun).

Around this time, your child will probably know around 50 words, and may be putting together simple two-word sentences, gradually moving on to more complicated language skills – including the ability to ask questions and to describe actions and objects.

3-4 Years
By the time your child turns three years of age, his vocabulary will have increased enormously – with an average toddler of this age knowing anywhere from 300 to 1,000 words (although more or less can still be normal).

Your toddler might start experimenting with longer sentences and begin testing out what are known as ‘narrative skills’ – which means she can describe a simple story or idea.

Around this age, toddlers will often begin using imaginative play and imitating the language they hear around them – so don’t be surprised if you find your three year old giving teddy a good telling off!

4-5 Years
All being well, by the time a child starts school, they will be using more sophisticated sentences, with different tenses and complex grammatical structures. You will understand almost everything your child says to you. A four-year-old has a much more powerful memory than a smaller child, so he will probably be able to follow instructions that have more than one part, like ‘take off your shoes and hang your coat up’ (although we can’t guarantee he’ll follow the instruction!)

Tips to Get Babies Talking!
In the first year, help your baby to associate what he sees with words. When he looks at a toy, say, “Oh, I see you’re looking at the duck. He’s yellow, isn’t he?” At bath time, name the body parts as you wash them. And don’t forget to leave space for him to answer back – those little giggles and noises are your baby’s way of talking to you!

In the second year, sing familiar songs with your child. Encourage her to join in with actions or make animal noises at the appropriate moment. Try to make new words and sounds lots of fun. Don’t correct her if she gets words wrong, just try to praise her efforts and use the right words yourself.

In the third year, help build your child’s vocabulary by introducing concepts like colours and numbers, through games. Count blocks when you build towers, or challenge your toddler to find all the yellow bricks while you find the red bricks.

In your child’s fourth year, get them involved in describing things and let them take over the bed time story sometimes. What do they think happens next? It’s also a good time to arrange play dates and let your child practice his sharing and turn-taking with some playmates!

Reading wih your child

I've just come across a great set of video clips showing people reading to children of varying ages from a baby to a fourth and fifth grader (that being the end of primary school here in the UK) so thought I would share it with everyone else!

I found it the long winded route... I was following Play Activities on Twitter and she commented about this blog post so I took a look.

If you want to go directly to the clips - you need to click on the Reading with your child link on the left hand column at Chets Creek Elemenary School website. Do take a look there are some great ideas for sharing books and the different levels of development and communication.

Signing

We have just started attending Sing and Sign classes with our second son and the DVD that we were given when our first son was smaller has been dug out - having just watched the Sing and Sign DVD for what seems like the thousandth time this week I thought I would write about signing.

My first experience of signing was when I learnt the finger spelling alphabet when I was about six, I then learnt a few songs with sign during my time at Brownies and Guides but that was all just for fun rather than specifically about communicating. I then learnt more about using sign to support the spoken word when working on abstract concepts with a child with autism - the theory being that as he was a visual learner giving him the sign whilst giving the receptive instruction would make it more concrete.

In January 2005 I did a two day Makaton course and learnt a lot more signs, and a lot more of the research / theory behind signing. My new enthusiasm for sign supported speech led me to investigate baby signing (hence the DVD as my 'baby' was too old to start the classes) and we started signing at home. We also used the popular Makaton based children's television programme Something Special on CBeebies with Justin and Mr Tumble to increase our signing reportoire.

Baby Signing
As a part of typical child development babies naturally use gestures and sounds before speech is well established to help their parents understand them, for example they point, clap. shake their heads and wave. Baby signing involves introducing extra gestures to help your baby communicate. It's easy to do first signs often include milk, more, change nappy, and tired plus favourite animals and vehicles. Sing and Sign classes are one of a number of baby music classes that involve a mixture of teaching parents signs and music activities to entertain the babies.

Sign Supported English
Signed English (including systems such as Signalong and Makaton) have been developed for the same reason as the now popular mainstream baby signing - to assist those with speech and communication difficulties to communicate their needs alongside developing their speech. Signalong and Makaton were developed using British Sign Language (BSL) signs matched to the key words in a sentence, so that as you speak you sign and speak at the same time. Signs are often pictorial and convey the meaning more easily than words, which are more abstract.

For More Information
Makaton
Signalong
Sing and Sign
Chelltune’s Baby Sign Language Store- Books, DVDs, interactive ebooks, keepsake charts, etc for signing babies and children.

Sight Reading - High Frequency Words

Introduction
High frequency words are the essential words which pupils will need, to be able to read even very simple texts. Some of these words have irregular or difficult spellings and are often difficult to predict from the surrounding text. The list is in two sections with 45 words to be achieved by the end of the reception year (YR) and approximately 150 words to be learned between Years 1 and 2. By the end of Y2, pupils should be able to read all these words easily, in and out of context.

Reception Words

I	are	big	it	he
go	the	she	at	am
come	of	and	play	all
went	we	they	no	is
up	this	my	yes	cat
you	dog	see	for	get
day	me	on	a	said
was	like	away	dad	to
look	going	mum	an	in

Reception Year Words are available as laminated flashcards from Littlesheep Learning

Year 1 and 2 Words

about	can't	her	many	over
then	who	after	could	here
people	there	will	again	did
him	more	push	these	with
an	do	his	much	pull
three	would	another	don't	home
must	put	time	your	as
dig	house	name	ran	too
back	door	how	new	saw
took	ball	down	if	next
school	tree	be	first	jump
night	seen	two	because	from
just	not	should	us	bed
girl	last	now	sister	very
been	good	laugh	off	so
want	boy	got	little	old
some	water	brother	had	live(d)
once	take	way	but	half
love	one	than	were	by
has	made	or	that	what
call(ed)	have	make	our	their
when	came	help	man	out
them	where	may

Plus: days of the week, months of the year, numbers to twenty, common colour words, pupil's name and address, and the name and address of their school.

Fine Motor Skills Development

Introduction
To many people, fine motor development means the way a child holds and uses pencils, crayons, and scissors, but fine motor development is much more. Fine motor skills are the small movements of the hands in co-ordination with the eyes. The development of fine motor control is a process of refining gross motor skills and they develop as the neurological system matures. Fine motor skills do not develop over-night, but with time and practice. It is more fun to learn while you play and this is especially important when practising fine motor skills.

All fine motor activities are built upon four important skills. These four skills must be learned before a child can go on to more complicated tasks. They are:

• Grasping objects
• Reaching out to objects
• Releasing objects deliberately
• Turning the wrist in various directions

Fine Motor Skills Milestones

By one year

Reaches, grasps, puts object in mouth
Picks things up with pincer grasp (thumb and one finger)
Transfers object from one hand to the other
Drops and picks up toy

Points

Stacks objects
Removes pegs from a pegboard
Puts objects in a container

By two years
Builds tower of six small blocks
Places rings on a peg

Places five pegs in pegboard
Turns pages two or three at a time
Holds large crayon in fisted grasp

Scribbles
Imitates vertical stroke with crayon

Turns knobs
Throws small ball
Paints with whole arm movement, shifts hands, makes strokes
Pulls large popbeads apart

Threads large beads

Unwraps things

By three years
Turns single pages
Snips with scissors
Holds crayon with thumb and fingers (not fist)
Uses one hand consistently in most activities
Imitates circular, vertical, horizontal strokes
Paints with some wrist action - makes dots, lines, circular strokes
Rolls, pounds, squeezes, and pulls playdough
Builds a nine block tower
Strings small beads
Unscrews lid of a jar
Makes snips with scissors
Unbuttons

By four years
Builds tower of nine small blocks
Hammers in nails and pegs
Copies circle / cross
Manipulates playdough easily - rolls balls, snakes and makes biscuits

By five years
Cuts on line continuously
Copies cross and square
Prints some letters and numbers
Screws together a threaded objectAttempts tripod grasp on a pencil
Builds 10 block tower

By six years
Cuts out simple shapes
Copies triangle / square and first name
Colours within lines
Uses a tripod pencil grasp
Has decided on hand preference - is left or right handed
Pastes and glues appropriately
Completes a lacing card

By seven years
Copies diamond / rectangle
Copies printed letters
Ties a bow
Draws a line with a ruler

This information is a general guide, please keep in mind that each child is unique and develops skills at their own rate. If you are concerned about your child's development, please ask your health visitor, doctor or child’s teacher for advice.

Littlesheep Learning stocks a range of products to help with fine motor development.

Gross Motor Skills Development

Introduction
Gross motor skills are larger movements involving the arm, leg, or feet muscles or the entire body, actions like crawling, walking, running, and jumping are gross motor skills

Gross Motor Skills Milestones
By six months
Holds head steady
Rolls over both ways
Pushes up with arms while on tummy
Sits briefly independently

By one year:
Sits confidently
Crawls forward
Pulls to stand while holding on
Cruises along furniture
Stands unsupported
Walks with hands held

By eighteen months:
Walks alone
Kneels
Climbs stairs
Squats to play
Kneels
Stoops and recovers
Tries to kick balls
Climbs on furniture
Pulls toy while walking

By two years
Walks backwards
Picks up toys from floor without falling
Seats self in child size chair
Walks up and down stairs with hand held
Moves to music
Jumps in place/off a step
Kicks a stationary ball
Walks up stairs independently
Throws a ball overhand
Propels “ride-on” toys forward

By three years
Runs forward
Jumps in place with two feet together
Walks on tiptoe
Kicks a ball forward
Throws overhand at a target
Catches a rolled ball
Rides a tricycle using pedals

By four years
Runs around obstacles
Walks on a line
Pushes, pulls, steers wheeled toys
Uses slide independently
Jumps over 15cm high object and lands on both feet together
Throws ball overhand
Catches large ball from 1.5m
Balances on one foot for five to ten seconds
Hops on one foot two or more times

By five years
Bounces and catches a ball
Throws a ball in the air and catches
Balance on one foot for five seconds
Walks on a line heel to toe
Jumps forward ten times without falling
Walks up and down stair independently, alternating feet
Does forward rolls

By six years
Runs lightly on toes
Walks on balance beam
Hops for 2m
Skips on alternate feet
Skip with a skipping rope
Skates
Kicks a rolling ball
Rides a bicycle
Dribbles a ball
Throws a ball with good accuracy

This information is a general guide, please keep in mind that each child is unique and develops skills at their own rate. If you are concerned about your child's development, please ask your health visitor, doctor or child’s teacher for advice.