Pre-School and Daycare
ABC's at 3 1/2?
can your 3 1/2 year old say their ABC's? count to 10? know their colors or shapes? mine doesnt know any i feel like hes so behind! he just started preschool last month... should i be worried?
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Re: ABC's at 3 1/2?
Mine has been in daycare since he was an infant. He can recite the ABC song and he counts to ten with prompting and some mistakes. He knows the circle, square and star. And a heart.
They will learn this in preschool, don't worry! DS1 starts preK3 in August (he has a Sept birthday- oldest in the class).
LOL...yesterday on the 24+ board there was a post with tons of people talking about how their 2 year olds know letters, shapes, colors, numbers. Someone actually said that the only shape their kid didn't know was a pentagon! While reading that post, I felt like my kid was going to be like that kid in the movie Parenthood who wore a bucket on his head and ran into walls. BTW-I am a preschool teacher and most of the kids who walk through our doors don't know any colors, letter, shapes, or numbers!!!!!
DS knows some letters, can count to 10 when he wants to, and knows basic shapes(circle, square, rectangle, triangle, star, heart) Colors? Forget about it! He can match colors but naming or retrieving a requested colored item...no way. He insists on calling his red jacket blue. When you ask what color an item is, he randomly names colors until he finally gets the correct one.
Don't worry...they'll cover all of this in preschool!!!! You will be amazed how quickly they learn!
I agree , they ill pick it up very quickly. Is it something you work on at home?
DS knows up to 30- which he learned in the last month or two.(he also just started preschool last fall, I am a SAHM) He knows all shapes, colors, can recognize each letter and knows their sounds. He has knows most of this for at least a year. I don't mean that to be rude at all, I am just giving our experience.
I am sure your DS is fine!
Yes. He can recite the ABC's, knows all of his shapes and can count to 10.
BUT.....he cannot point out all of his letters. He knows the letters in his name, but if I show him other letters in a book or something, he doesn't really know them all yet.
He has been going to "school" since he was 2 (he was in nursery school last year....) and is in preschool this year (which he started in September....).
I wouldn't worry though. Just keep working on it and he will get it once he is in school longer!
Yes my son can do all that - and count in Spanish (one of his daycare teachers is Spanish and teaches the kids) is starting to read, can spell basic words, etc.
Does it matter? No. You don't see many high school kids who can't count to 10, know their colors and know the aphabet. It's just like sitting up, walking and crawling. They start at different ages but sooner or later, they all catch up to each other. Your LO will be fine.
Having said all that, I can take little credit for my ds. We do a lot of reading but he learned most of it at daycare. Plus, he loves Nick, Jr. and I'm amazed at what he learns from it. The other day he said the word dinosaur in Chinese- I asked him where he learned it and he said Kai-Lan (one of the shows). It changed my view of TV!!
IUI- BFN IVF #1 -BFP! Allie is our 2nd IVF baby. Born at 36 1/2 weeks after pre-e again
She can count to 10 and just learned all of her colors in the last couple months. She also knows her shapes. ABC's not so much. She can sing parts of them, but nothing consistent or even right most of the time...lol.
Dont' stress. Some little ones are just interested in it yet. Your DC will learn them with time.
Every kid is different! My son took forever to do everything but now is right there with every other almost 5 year old. My daughter is not quite 3 yet and can recite and identify every letter, can count to 20, identify numbers and count things. She is way ahead of my son but I do believe everything starts to even out at around 4-5.
And a few months ago I was worried that I would point to a color and she would say the wrong one! They do turn corners very quickly!
Yes. She'll sing the ABC song (can't identify them all correctly...she can write about 12 letters). She can count to 14...and then she'll keep repeating 17, 18, 19, 20 twice. She doesn't recognize a lot of the numbers though. She has known her colors since around 22-23 months, and her shapes following right after. I'm sure he'll catch up soon, but you might want to help him at home a bit. DD goes to school with 3 year olds that can write out their whole name, so that made me freak out a bit that she was behind. She'll be 4 at the end of July...
Yes, my 3.5 year old knows his ABC's can count to 10 and knows most colors and shapes. BUT he started preschool in the fall, so if your LO just started last month give him a chance to catch up! They learn really fast at this age.
Do you try to work on these things? Not saying that you have to but you can do a lot of fun games/songs at home.
ABC's, count to 100 by 1's and 10's, all shapes and colors and how to make different colors - magenta, marigold, etc. Starting to recognize words.
No! My four year and 2 month old knows his colors, some of his shapes, can say his ABC's and count to ten. He can identify a few letters, mostly a few in his name and D for daddy lol.
My 3.5 year old (who is my foster son) cannot do these things. He can count with mistakes, but he has a speech issue, so we are working on getting him evaluated for that. We are working on the ABC's right now. Not sure about the shapes, although he does do well with his colors.
Yes. Madelyn can say her ABC's, recognize almost all uppercase and lowercase letters, knows the sounds of almost all letters and can figure out what words start with.
She can count to 20 but some of the teen numbers might get left out.
She knows all of her colors and shapes.
You don't need to be worried at all. Just keep working on them.
Yes to everything. She is 3 years 5 months. She has been in daycare since 4 months. She has known her ABCs and 123s for a while.
I think every child develops and learns things differently. He will catch up.
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Every child develops at a different rate. It doesn't mean that your LO is behind if he/she cannot do these things at 3.5 years old. Give him/her a year in preschool and he/she will know these things within that time span. You've got to consider that there is a true spectrum here - at 3.5, some kids can only say a handful of words while others never stop talking. Some are potty trained, some are not. Some say their ABCs, some do not even know A! Some are speaking English, others Spanish and will later learn English and do well in an American school. Do not worry! Read to him about his ABCs, numbers, colors and shapes and soon enough he'll pick it up! My DD had such a hard time with these, so it seems, at first. Then it seemed like overnight she knew many of these things! It was such a surprise - like a lightbulb was turned on! And that's just what it was. It was a lightbulb, a developmental lightbulb that allowed her to pick up on these things where earlier she was not ready.
Your LO is doing just fine!
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Double undergrad graduation May 2011| Me: Psychology, DH: Communication| A long journey!
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My son will be 3 1/2 in July. I taught him at home right up until he was a few weeks away from turning 3 years old---and then he started preschool.
He starts off well with the ABC's---can't say them all the way through yet correctly.
He starts off well counting to 10---then starts saying them out of order around 5-6, then back on track at 8-9-10
Yes, he knows his colors and shapes very well.
Yes, DD could do those things at 2. But she was an early talker and very verbal. She had a puzzle with shapes and colors and learned most of it from that. (Besides she had to know her colors so she could start demanding everything be in her favorite colors!)
On the flip side, she was a late walker and not very physical and at 3.5 is just starting to catch-up to her classmates in terms of running/climbing/balance. Heck my 17mo can almost ride a tricycle as well as his big sister can! And it's not that he's very advanced, she's just really slow at physical things. It'll all even out.
DD turned 3 last month. She can say and recognize her ABC's. She can count past 10 and recognizes 1 through 10. She's known her colors since 1.5 and has recently started getting pretty good at her shapes.
However, I wouldn't be worried at all about your son. There is such a wide range of normal for all of this stuff, all that really matters is that he has at least some of it down by kindergarten which is probably two years away for him. I figure preschool is to help get kids ready for kindergarten. There's no reason at all to feel like he's behind!
For anyone who's worried about letter recognition, I highly recommend LeapFrog's The Letter Factory video. I'm not a big fan of t.v. (DD didn't watch any until she was 2 and watches less than an average of 1 hour a day even now) But this video taught her to recognize all her upper case letters last summer at 2.5 y.o. including their primary sounds. She watched it maybe 3 times a week for 2-3 months and went from not knowing any of the letters to knowing all of them. We got her a set of dry-erase letter tracing boards for Christmas and she taught herself all the lowercase letters from that. The video is only about $10 at Target and kids absolutely love it! .
My daughter is 2.5 years old. She can say her ABCs, recognize every letter, count to 20, recognize the numbers 0-9, point out all basic colors, spell her name, tell you her birthdate, recognize all basic shapes and an octagon, and tell you how old she is. She was able to do most of this by her 2nd birthday. She never been to school because my mother in law watches her during the day. I work on these things with her at night by reading books, playing with bath toys, etc...
With that being said.... my step-daughter didn't know most of these things until she started school at 4 years old and now she is an honor student in the 4th grade. Don't worry about it. Your LO will be fine and will pick up on these things fast.