Educational milestones: What are they and are your kids meeting them?

It is important for a child to develop certain educational and learning skills by certain ages. Much of the information available to parents is generally only for infant development. Below are some educational milestones for children up to age 10. Communication is necessary to ensure your child achieves these developments.

Educational development for Infants up to 1-Year-Olds

Ages to 3 months: By 3 months old, infants should be learning to communicate by touch and sound. For example, the feel of a soft blanket or massage or the sound of a mother’s voice will be comforting. Practicing eye focus is a very important part of this stage of development. Infants can learn sight focusing when parents place black and white images in front of their faces for a few minutes at a time. Smell and taste is first recognized from breast milk or formula.

Ages 3 to 7 months: By 7 months old, infants should develop some interest in making their own sounds and even babble incoherent chains of consonants. At this stage, infants might express displeasure at certain sights, smells or sounds with facial expressions or crying. At this stage, a parent should be focusing on helping baby develop muscles, follow moving objects with head and eyes and smile at familiar faces and objects. Tasting baby food for the first time will occur around the seventh month as well.

Ages 7 to 12 months : By 12 months old, infants should roll from back to stomach and vice versa, sit without support, support weight on legs, reach with one hand, transfer objects from hand to hand and be able to use a full grasp. It is by this age that your child can see in full color and at a greater distance, track moving objects and respond to his or her name. He or she should also respond to “no,” distinguish voiced emotions, use voice for communicating emotions, babble consonants, explore using hands and mouth, struggle to reach objects and start to self feed.

Educational development for Ages 1 to 5

Expect to see your child walk and talk by age one-and-a-half. During this stage of his or her educational development, a child will be learning many things, including how to control behaviors. Many schools will require pre-reading or reading skills by the age of 5. Reading instruction is imperative in these early stages. Along with reading skills, a child should learn shapes, colors and numbers. Pattern recognition and association is also key to this age. By the age of 3, a child should be able to talk in complete sentences and carry on somewhat of a “conversation”. By the age of 5, a child should be able to carry on a more detailed conversation and understand many word meanings.

Educational development for Ages 5 to 10

During these years a child will experience a large growth in knowledge. Reading, vocabulary, mathematic skills, scientific reasoning as well as social adaptation and communication are essential developments to this age range. A child in this age bracket should be able to perform a wide variety of tasks that center around the above-mentioned skills.

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