Important Milestones: Your Child at Four Years

How your child plays, learns, speaks, and acts offers important clues about your child’s development. Developmental milestones are things most children can do by a certain age.

 

Check the milestones your child has reached by his or her 3rd birthday. Take this with you and talk with your child’s doctor at every visit about the milestones your child has reached and what to expect next.

 

What most children do at this age: Social and Emotional

   Enjoys doing new things

   Plays “Mom” and “Dad”

   Is more and more creative with make-believe play

   Would rather play with other children than by himself

   Cooperates with other children

   Often can’t tell what’s real and what’s make-believe

   Talks about what she likes and what she is interested in

Language/Communication

Knows some basic rules of grammar, such as correctly using “he” and “she”

   Sings a song or says a poem from memory such as the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” or the  “Wheels on the Bus”

   Tells stories

   Can say first and last name

Cognitive (learning, thinking, problem-solving)

 

   Names some colors and some numbers

   Understands the idea of counting

   Starts to understand time

   Remembers parts of a story

   Understands the idea of “same” and “different”

   Draws a person with 2 to 4 body parts

   Uses scissors

   Starts to copy some capital letters

   Plays board or card games

   Tells you what he thinks is going to happen next in a book

 

 

Movement/Physical Development

 

   Hops and stands on one foot up to 2 seconds

   Catches a bounced ball most of the time

   Pours, cuts with supervision, and mashes own food