In this post we will begin our discussion of 3 to 4 year olds. As with the discussion of 2 and 1/2 to 3 year olds, the age range will not be as big a factor as the skill range. We will discuss how to help children reach these milestones regardless of age. Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).
In this post we will look at the area of learning - Communication. The component is Receptive Language with the learning expectation: Listens with understanding and interest to conversations, directions, music, and a variety of reading materials. The first performance indicator is: Responds correctly to questions about own name, sex, and age. For once, most children in this age range actually conquer this particular performance indicator within the designated time frame. If a child cannot respond correctly to these types of questions by the age of 4 years old, developmental screening should be done.
The next performance indicator is: Understands size comparatives. Conquering this performance indicator depends greatly on how much exposure a child has had to size comparatives. Remember some children drag greatly in language development these days due to lack of exposure to real conversations. In years past, children picked up these types of skills from everyday conversation. That is not necessarily the case anymore. Never take for granted that children at even this age understand size comparatives. In my childcare, these concepts fall into my "position and direction" word instruction. I directly teach these concepts to every child to make sure they have an understanding of these types of words.
Next on our list of performance indicators is: Understands relationships expressed by "if," "then," or "because" sentences. I will admit to you that I laughed out loud at this one. This performance indicator assumes that children will be taught logical thinking. I do believe educational circles stopped teaching logical thinking in the 1990s. I say that because most young adults under the age of 25 have never really been taught logical thinking. My own biological children were taught logical thinking because I taught them myself. I did not realize how much other children their age were not taught this until I had employees in that age range. Sometimes I would just stand and stare at them dumbfounded because they could not process information in a logical sequence. My exact thoughts in those moments were "my own children could have figured that out by the time they were 10 years of age, and you are 20 something?" To say that this type of instruction is valuable would be the understatement of the century. One of the best ways to teach these concepts to children involves natural consequences. When a child understands that if I do this, then this will happen. That is the beginning of logical thinking. However, nowadays we redirect children to help them avoid natural consequences a great deal of the time. We do this to avoid actually having to deal with hissy fits and temper tantrums, but we are also cutting out our greatest tool to teach logical thinking. Childhood cannot be all rainbows and fluffy clouds and unicorns. Children need the hard knocks to truly become functioning adults. Please, let us stop raising 20 somethings that cannot take a train of thought to its logical conclusion. This is ridiculous.
The next performance indicator is: Understands "let's pretend" and "make-believe." In the last couple of years I have seen such a decline in children's ability to pretend it is sad. Unless a 3 year old has had exposure to an environment that promotes pretend play, they are just not developing this. Some three year olds do well to parallel play without a war. This represents another one of those areas where you cannot assume a child will learn this on his/her own. We have to teach them to play. A great deal of the children's lack of imaginative thinking revolves around how little they have someone read to them. Books open up a child's imagination and many parents hardly ever read to their children. I cannot stress enough about the importance of reading to young children. Many, many, many areas of development will fall behind when a childhood is not filled with the pleasure of having someone read books to them.
The last performance indicator for this learning expectation is: Listens attentively and shows understanding of story plot by responding to questions. The first assumption in this performance indicator is a doozy. Listening attentively does not happen among many 3 year olds at all. You do well to keep them actually seated during an entire story without flopping, pestering everyone around them, or simply getting up and walking away. Kindergarten teachers now have an awful time trying to teach children to sit for group times. Sometimes that one skill alone takes them a month or longer to accomplish to any semblance of competency. Since listening attentively does not occur, the second half of that performance indicator also does not occur. I am not saying that children this age cannot be taught to listen attentively or follow a story plot. I am saying that certain philosophies among early childhood experts and trainers really complicate teaching these particular skills. If a child has the choice to not listen or sit, chances are that they will not listen or sit. This skill must be taught. People, you cannot have both ways. If you want children to have complete choice, you will complicate trying in instill a great deal of other very necessary skills. It does not harm children to have to sit long enough for a short book at all. I have an almost 3 year old that can sit for fairly long books. It is all in what you expect.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!
Check out Natalie's children's books at: https://www.amazon.com/author/nataliewade7457
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