Your Preschooler’s Development – 4 to 5 years

The pre-school years are almost over and before you know it your little one will be in full-time school. Their language and social skills are very sophisticated now, although it’s normal for them to still make the occasional mistake.

Find out a little more about how your preschooler’s communication skills are developing by exploring the information below.

Listening & Understanding

Your child now understands concepts of time, such as today, tomorrow and yesterday.

They will understand that the meaning of sentences can change depending on the words used and the order of these words. For example “the chicken was chased by the dog” is different to “the chicken chased the dog”.

They will stop and ask you for clarification if they don’t understand something.

Your child understands that others may think differently to them. This helps them learn more complex social skills.

They understand and use a range of colours, including less common colours such as brown, purple and orange.

Your child understands basic number concepts ‘there are four candles on the cake’. They will start to count objects by pointing to them one at a time.

They understand size and weight concepts and can tell you which object is ‘bigger’ or ‘lighter’.

Communicating

Your child will start to use more complex vocabulary such as:

  • connecting words – ‘if’, ‘when’, ‘before’
  • emotions and physical states – ‘confused’, ‘upset’, ‘exhausted’
  • words to explain thoughts – ‘thinking’, ‘forgot’, ‘remember’
  • descriptive words – ‘colourful’, ‘tiny’, ‘rough’

Your child is mastering the grammatical rules of English and will make fewer mistakes. They will be able to manipulate the order of words in a sentence to mean the same thing for example “the mummy cat licked her kitten” and “the kitten was licked by the mummy cat”.

They may start to use less direct language to request. For example ‘I really like lollipops’ rather than ‘can I have a lollipop?’.

They will start to predict what may happen and talk about imaginary events. For example ‘If you stand on the chair you might fall off and hurt your arm’ or ‘What if you could fly, then you might go to the moon’.

Your child is now able to talk about the function of objects. For example if you ask them tell me about a ball, they may say ‘you can throw it and it bounces’.

They are able to find solutions to problems and can answer questions such as ‘What do you do if you’re hungry?’, ‘What should you do if you fall over and scrape your knee?’.

Your child’s speech will be very clear now, however they still may have difficulty with ‘th’ and ‘r’ sounds. For example saying ‘free’ for three and ‘wabbit’ for rabbit.

Early Reading and Literacy

Your child may enjoying coping letters, their name and other favourite words.

They may be able to recite their favourite picture books - although some lines may be left out.

They will start to recognise many letters and may point these out. For example saying ‘That word’s got an M for mummy’.

Your child will use many more letter-like formations in their drawing.

They understand that letters and words are for reading and that they contain meaning. They may ask ‘what does that say?’ or ‘Can you read this to me?’.

3 to 4 years