[052001]

My DD will be 4 in January. She is unable to write her name or any letters nor identify them. She knows her colors and can count to 10. What academic skills do children typically have at that age?

I want to add that she has CP and cannot walk. Maybe she has been focusing most of her efforts on gross motor skills??

[angelkisses0102]

There is a huge range for what is or is not normal at this age. I would have her evaluated by the school district and/or a team of professionals familiar with pre-school age children and their development...and CP.

My DS was significantly delayed at this age...he was evaluated by the school district and placed in a wonderful program for pre-k and Kindy that has allowed him to advance so far. He did have undiagnosed health issues which played a huge role in this (arthritis and vision issues) but he is doing so well now because of the early intervention and therapies.
Good luck.

[Nevada Jen]

Its really interesting to me that you post this right now. I was just thinking of coming on to post about my DS on a similar topic. DS is a june b-day and was positive for drugs at birth. In the back of my mind I always worry that he will have some effects from it. Last year I sent him to a very upper end academic preschool. He was in the 3's class (he had turned 3 in June). Next class up was preK and the next year was K. The 3's class was very hard for him academically. He was expected to be able to write his name by himself after Christmas break. He couldn't even hold a pencil correctly and wasn't even very good at tracing it and couldn't even reliably trace it! At least 3/4's of the class had had their 4th birthdays by Christmas.
I was just saying to DH that this year he has no problem and he is actually the age the kids in his 3 year old class were last year. In retrospect, its obvious to me now that he did not have the small motor skills to learn those things the way they were being taught and that there is a huge skills gap between age 3.5 and 4.
Don't fret too much. You might consider trying to teach her letters in a way that does not require coloring or writing. Fridge Magnets. Walking through town and finding all the letter "A's" you can on signs and stuff like that. I think its definately too much to expect her to write her name at this point. Work on teaching her to trace the letters of her name if she is interested. I assume she is counting to 10 by rote? YOu can expand on the math knowledge by teaching her to sort and then count things. For instance, put all the cars in one pile and all the barrette's in another pile. How many of each are there. ANother really good activity for kids that age is looking for matches to socks. It teaches them the concept of differentiating things on a more advanced level.

I also think you are right on the money with the focusing on gross motor skills. I know that whenever we would "give up" on DD (also disabled) in gross motor, she would make a huge leap in another area. If you do not have a wheelchair she can self propel yet, you really might want to consider getting one. It definately made a big difference for my daughter academically and socially at that age.

[angelkisses0102]

To learn the letters and sounds...get the Leap Frog DVD "Letter Factory." DS loved this!!!

[Nevada Jen]

Aaahhhh!!!! Leap Frog stuff drives me nuts! I finally got the guts up to throw all the stuff out. But the letter fridge magnet thing was pretty useful. Now that annoying song is running through my head!

[OakShannon]

Originally Posted by 052001

My DD will be 4 in January. She is unable to write her name or any letters nor identify them. She knows her colors and can count to 10. What academic skills do children typically have at that age?

I want to add that she has CP and cannot walk. Maybe she has been focusing most of her efforts on gross motor skills??

Just those things don't raise any red flags for me. I think that would be true of a lot of 3.5-year-olds. Nevada is right that even a few months make a big difference at this age and that fine motor skills are a factor as well. It's hard to learn to write your name when you can't get the pencil to do what you want it to do. She has some good suggestions.

I've had kids enter my kindergarten not knowing more than a handful of letters. As long as they come ready to learn, they usually learn them pretty quickly. Before kindy, I'm an advocate of waiting until children show signs of interest and readiness for reading before pushing learning letters and sounds.

Are there other reasons that you are concerned besides not knowing her letters? If that's the only issue, I would let it go until she seems interested. Just focus on reading stories, fingerplays and songs - which teach literacy skills in a fun way. Three is too young to worry about this, unless you see other causes for concern.

[jalapeno]

My DD will be 4 next April. She can only reliably identify the letter O. She learned her colors at about 2 1/2. She can count pretty well to 30 because we do that out loud several times a day (like when we brush her teeth). She's in preschool and they introduce 2 or 3 letters each month. She doesn't seem particularly interested in learning them. I'm not concerned at this point. She does love being read to. And I think she learns things well when she is interested (like she has a good memory for songs).

So I'm with the camp that thinks it's too early to worry about it.

[megaphonemo]

One day, while doing some cleaning, we found a 'word search' book - you know, the old kind where there are a list of words and you have to find them in the puzzle. My 3.5 year old loved it!! She'd circle all the As, then the Bs, and sometimes she would circle all the letters in her name in order..... It was great practice for her..... Just a suggestion...

Mega

[mommytoEli]

she sounds fine. age appropriate. i used to have MANY kindergarteners come to school on the first day who could not write their own name, count to 10, or identify colors. if you want her to learn some more in the next year, i second the leap frog stuff. i'm sad nevada jen doesn't like it. i like it so much! i don't find it nearly as annoying as other things they could be watching. lol. my kids have it all- all the movies, a cd, flashcards, and the leapster computers. i very much credit my almost 4 year old's reading, number recognition and counting abilities to that computer. lol.

nevada jen IS right though...the song will stick in your head FOREVER. "the o says AW the o says AW, every letter makes a sound, the o says AW."

[tanmansmom]

Seriously, Letter Factory! TJ knew all of his letters and their sounds before age 2 (he was like 20 months). Now he loves the Word Factory. Oh if only I could get him to understand the big boy potty now!!!! I also bought him this great puzzle at an educational store. It has all of the letters under plexiglass and a magnetic pen. I pull one letter out to the side, he tells me the name and the sound and then finds where it sould go. We're working on him being able to manipulate it, but it's a little tough right now.

[mondk]

We have that Fridge magnet Leap thing and Joshie loves it (he's 2) but I don't think he is actually retaining it in memory, just likes to push in the letters and do a rendition of that song by humming.

When Brad was around age 3-4, my in-laws bought him a Leap Pad book thingie where you can insert different books. We loved the music ones. They still have it but are waiting a bit to introduce it to Joshie. I'm a big fan of Leap stuff!

Blessings, Michelle

[DPline]

Originally Posted by mommytoEli

nevada jen IS right though...the song will stick in your head FOREVER. "the o says AW the o says AW, every letter makes a sound, the o says AW."

And just when I had finally gotten that out of my head!

As much as it tended to drive me to distraction, my kids loved the Leapfrog DVD's and learned a ton from them.

[Emster]

My little guy will be 4 in March. He does great with counting, saying his abc's by rote memory, verbally spelling his name, colors. He can name some numbers and letters from sight, but not consistently. He's really active and (we think) smart. Can sing songs and has good coordination. BUT he has really no interest in pencils, crayons, paints, so he hasn't done any letter writing, tracing, etc. They work on those things at preschool. His teacher says hes right on track and that we'll see big improvements by this time next year. The most I've been able to get him to do is I asked him to circle the book in the Scholastic books flier that he wants me to order, which, to my surprise, he could do! So, I encourage where I can without pushing and am letting him lead the way.

[Nevada Jen]

Emster, that's exactly where my son was last year at the same age. You will be shocked where is next year at the same time. My older DD is disabled and everythign was a massive struggle. It honestly blew me away how fast my son improved with very little effort from us (compared to DD). He is starting to read now!