Essentials of Preschooler Development

July 19, 2019 / Parent Resources

Children undergo progressive development right from birth across physical, emotional, cognitive and language perspectives. While preschooler development is a gradual process, parents can monitor the phases that their child is going through to ensure they are on track to achieve the appropriate developmental milestones at the right time.

Children between the ages of 3 and 4 should be able to climb stairs without any difficulty, while showing agility in running and other forms of movement recognized as gross motor skills. In terms of fine motor skills, preschoolers should be able to draw circles and squares along with a basic figure of a person. With regard to cognitive milestones, preschoolers should be able to count, have a sense of time and engage in imaginative play. At this age, preschoolers will also learn to share, and will attach more importance to friends, preferring to spend time playing with others. 

While there are general milestones based on the age, every child is different and develops at a unique pace. The pace of their development often depends on their personality and the surrounding environment. There are many activities you can do to ensure healthy development. You can read to your child and gift books to encourage them to read. You can also talk to them in complete and grammatically correct sentences to create a language template for them to learn from. Providing toys suitable to the children’s age is another great way to ensure they cover their developmental milestones at the right time. 

Game-based Learning for Preschooler Development

When children aren’t showing signs of appropriate development, parents should be able to identify them. Delayed development in preschool aged children can be identified when they don’t signs of social tendencies, avoid sharing with other children, lack the ability to read simple words and lack physical abilities such as standing on one foot, making simple drawings and so on.

Studies show that slumps in the development of preschool children can generally be traced to a deficiency in cognitive and creative stimulation and lack of exposure to children of the same age. Such scenarios can be remedied by using tools such as educational games and customized activities such as playdates to encourage social development. Channeling the creativity of the children through games that inspire critical thinking is another option that works well in encouraging cognitive development. You can also use games to enhance children’s math and language abilities. 

Osmo Genius Kit is a brilliant game set that employs technology integrated with physical game elements to provide a seamless game-based learning experience for preschool children. Osmo Genius Tangram game from Osmo Genius Kit lets children build animal and object shapes using colorful geometric tiles enhancing their spatial reasoning skills. For enhancing their language ability, kids can play Osmo Genius Words game, which lets them spell the names of fun images through letter tiles.

As parents, helping their children pick up necessary skill sets for success in life begins from the moment they are born. With the right set of learning tools, parents can ensure that their children won’t miss out on developmental milestones on their journey of learning and discovery.