Chapter 6 Understanding Four and Five Year Olds

Physical Development

• Increased body strength and coordination makes movement fun

• Body proportions are changing. By 5 ½ years old, most children’s legs are about half the length of the body. This makes running, jumping, and balancing easier for preschoolers.

• Bones become harder and stronger• Lose baby teeth, gain permanent teeth (good

nutrition is important)

Gross Motor Development• They improve their skills as their body becomes stronger and

longer. • At 4 years old:

– one can hop on one foot– walk down stairs with alternating feet– can balance on 1 foot for about 10 seconds. – Can walk backwards, toe to heel for 4 steps.

• At 5 years old: – Begin to skip– Ride a bike with training wheels– Can walk forward and backward on a balance beam. – They can climb fences – march to music– Catching and throwing improves.

• As the child’s brain matures, there is better coordination of motor and visual systems.

Fine Motor Development• String beads• Work with small games or puzzles (by 5 yrs they can

put together18-35 pieces)• Build straight and tall towers from blocks • Writing and drawing skills improve quickly.• Drawing skills are more refined and adults can

recognize what they’re drawing.• Begins to recognize letters. They can distinguish

between writing and non-writing• They can copy and print a few letters, but not often

correctly. Mirror images are difficult.• Fairly skilled with a writing tool. They can stay in the

lines fairly well.• They begin to understand letters and sounds are

linked.

Activity: Physical Skills Learning Centers

Discussion & brainstorm:

• Discuss and brainstorm activities for encouraging preschoolers to practice printing their names. How much emphasis should you place on this skill sand accuracy at this age?

Self Help Skills• Dressing and undressing with little help• Can tell front from the back of clothing• Can buckle belts and close zippers• By 5, may even button and unbutton• Can put shoes on the right feet; may tie own

shoelaces• Self feeding is easier. They enjoy helping with

serving. They can use spoons/forks with ease• Can cut some foods with knife.• Better able to take care of hygiene• Can brush own teeth• Can comb their hair

Discuss:

• What kinds of activities or toys would encourage self help skills?

Cognitive Development

• This is a time for huge gains.• Preschoolers have become more skilled in

thinking without having to act things out, so they have a better understanding of symbols than younger children.

• They have increased language comprehension and expressive language.

• You can test a preschooler’s recognition and recall skills.

Play the memory game.

• Top recall the items requires the child to create a mental image. Although the child can recognize all 10 items, he/she can probably only recall 4 or 5. They have better recognition skills than recall skills.

Play changes• Children start creating their own symbols at this age,

and this is reflected in their play. Instead of imitating adults, they begin to add their own ideas. New symbols begin in art. Before 4 years old, children tend to scribble or just draw simple shapes

• Understanding symbols is important for developing more advanced cognitive skills. Cognitive development during the preschool years helps prepare children for future learning during the school years.

2 year old 3 year old 4 year old 5 year old

Preschoolers are curious

• They want to learn why things happened around them. They ask a lot of questions and are trying to make sense of the world. They still have flaws in their thinking, but asking questions again and again makes their thinking become more and more logical.

• Your curriculum should promote children’s cognitive growth. As you provide new experiences, the children’s vocabularies will grow. They will learn new concepts.

What kinds of skills does having a class pet teach?

• Size, color, method of eating, new vocabulary words. Each new experience helps the children grow intellectually.

• Role Playing Activity: A teacher is comforting a child who is very sad at the loss of a beloved pet. Evaluate the teacher’s effectiveness in meeting the child’s need.

Language Comprehension Skills

• The language comprehension skills of 4 and 5 year olds are growing constantly. New words related to space increase their understanding (beside, above, below, backward, bottom, forward) they also understand down, low, different and thin. As you instruct these students, children will be able to understand and follow directions. “Place the green block behind the blue block”

• They become better at following 3 step commands. “ Pick up the puzzle, put it on the table, and wash your hands” However, if you don’t sequence the directions correctly, it may confuse the child.

Language Comprehension skills cont.

• Children have a better understanding of singular and plural. Sandwich vs. cookies

• Children start understanding the passive voice sentence. “the orange was eaten by Brock.” A younger child would think that the orange ate Brock. The 4-5 year old would understand that Brock ate the orange.

• Words and phrases have more than 1 meaning, preschoolers can become confused by this. “Wanda just flew out the door.” or “I’m dying of hunger”

Reading

• Most 4-5 year olds cannot read, but are developing pre-reading skills. This starts by understanding symbolism. Children first need to understand that a group of letters on paper can symbolize any object.

• Preschoolers can recognize and name many letters of the alphabet as well as their own names.

• They enjoy reading the same stores over and over and may be able to pick out words they recognize.

• They can guess words they dont recognize by looking at the first letter and the pictures for clues.

Expressive Language skills

• Children at this age tend to talk to you rather than converse with you. When you talk about a subject, they may interrupt you to talk about something entirely unrelated. In later years they will be better at 2-way communication.

Articulation

• The ability to produce sounds of language. This improves greatly at ages 4-5. Most children still have trouble making the ch sound and the th sound. Others may have trouble with the S sound, causing a lisp.

• Some preschoolers have stuttering problems. Stuttering is the repeated sound or words and pausing for unusually long times while speaking. For most preschoolers, stuttering is a result of thinking faster than they can talk. As children’s speech ability catches up to their thinking ability, the stuttering problem tends to disappear.

Vocabulary

• Most 4 year olds have about 1500 words in their vocabularies.

• 5 year olds: 2000.• Children at this age may make up their own

meanings to some words. • They have mainly concrete nouns and action

verbs in their vocabularies. They are beginning to add modifiers and adjectives to their vocabularies, so children would be unlikely to use the words freedom or unfair unless they were copying the words of adults.

Imitation

• They do imitate phrases they hear from adults of TV. Often they don’t know what these words mean, only that they’ve heard them before.

Grammar• Grammar improves during preschool years.

Children start to learn there are exceptions to grammar rules. (ate, ran, and went)

• They still put -ed at the end of words occasionally.• They learn how to properly ask questions.

– 3 year old might ask “why the sky is blue?”– 4 or 5 year old might ask “Why is the sky blue?”

• Some forms of pronouns give preschoolers trouble still. “Him and me are going to the zoo.”

• They also have trouble with noun and verb agreement “Tommy don’t have a crayon”

Math Skills

• Number concepts become easier for children of this age.

• Rote counting is gained by most children before they understand that each number represents a certain amount.

• Most 4 year olds can rote count to 9• Most 5 year olds can rote count to 20• Rote counting develops at different rates,

therefore you need to observe children to make sure your curriculum fits their skill levels.

Math Skills cont.

• True counting, in which an object is counted for each number named, develops more slowly.

Math concepts cont.• At 4 years old, they usually recognize numerals 1-5• 5 year olds usually recognize 1-10. They can

even dial their own phone numbers.• Other math skills develop at this age. They’re

better able to recognize shapes and can understand terms related to size and number such as short, fat, tallest, same, first and last.

• They begin to understand money concepts. Most can identify a penny, nickel and dime. They don’t understand the value of the money though.

• Time concepts are more clear but are still confusing. They start to understand the difference between today, tomorrow and yesterday but they don’t understand how much time an hour or 5 minutes is.

Reading and Math Fun Activity

Social-Emotional Development

• Preschoolers are helpful, cheerful and cooperative. Emotions are changing in children at this age. As they learn and grow, the causes of happiness, fear, anger, and sadness change. The ways children react to these emotions change too.

Social Development• Companionships and friendships are important at

this age. Preschoolers are becoming more independent of adults. They like to play on their own or with other children. They may still need adults though to settle disputes or to help get materials.

• They tend to have a few friends, usually of the same sex. They are more likely to share their toys with a friend.

• Over 1/3 of a four year old child’s play is solitary play. By age 5, play involves more interaction and cooperation.

• Children of this age accept supervision. They know their own abilities and realize adults have reasons for rules.

Emotional Development• They start to realize that there are other ways of

showing love other than a hug or physical signs of affection. They start to realize that sharing or helping with a task is a way of showing you care.

• Children may ask for help with a task even if they don’t need it just to assure them that you care.

• Children start to develop a sense of humor. Laughter is a way of expressing their happiness. They also laugh at things they know are unusual , like a dog that says “meow” in a story.

Fear• Causes of fear change at this age. Children are

still afraid of imagined creatures, such as monsters and ghosts. They start to understand there is a difference between the real and the imagined. This helps children deal with some of these fears.

• Other fears can be created with new knowledge. They are aware of new dangers.

• 5 year olds are more afraid of being hurt. They know of more things that can hurt them. They may be afraid of doctors and dentists or of high places and dogs because of prior experiences.

• Children work through fears in play. It helps them act out some of their intense feelings and deal with their fears.

Discuss:

• Parents and caregivers may unintentionally increase children’s fears when teaching about strangers. How can you teach children about strangers without adding to their fears?

Anger

• Less things anger preschoolers than toddlers.• However, they can get angry if they cannot reach

their goals. • They are more likely to use their words and yelling

rather than kicking and screaming.• Some preschoolers respond more physically to

anger than other preschoolers by hitting, kicking, pushing, etc. They may not have learned better ways of expressing anger from adult role models or they may want attention.

Jealousy

• Jealousy may surface in many ways: regression, physical problems such as stomachaches or nightmares.

• These children need to be reassured that they are still loved and given a little extra attention to make them feel special.

Sadness

• 4-5 year olds become aware of situations of sadness, like death.

• Children are not always sure how to express sadness. They may deal with sadness in play. Often they need help from adults to learn that it is okay to cry and talk about their feelings. They need adults to model appropriate responses to sadness and to provide clear explanations.

Teaching 4 and 5 year olds

• Children of this age enjoy feeling needed and important and like to be helpful. You need to carefully select helpers so that all get a chance to help even from those not as vocal.

• Children at this age love talking. After you read a story, the children may enjoy retelling a story.

• They are usually able to retell it in sequence and in detail.

• Children of this age will imitate your speech. For this reason you need to be careful of your statements. You should not use words or statements you wouldn’t want them repeating.

Teaching 4 and 5 year olds cont.

• You do not need to function as a playmate as much now, but you will handle more disputes among children.

• You will want to add new ideas to play also.• Some children will have imaginary friends to

which you can encourage and tend to.

Teaching 4 and 5 year olds cont.

• Children are proud of their possessions and may enjoy bringing toys to preschool, or will be proud of new shoes or a jacket. Asking children questions about their things can help build their self esteem.

• Their attention span is increasing and they enjoy working on projects such as woodworking, cooking, sculpting clay, etc. As they get older they will engage for longer periods of time. The average time spent in most activities at this age is about 7 minutes.

Teaching 4 and 5 year olds cont.

• Discussion: What safety and sanitation guidelines need to be followed for woodworking and cooking projects in preschool? Discus your opinions on the value of these activities in the preschool curriculum.