What kind of things can your three year old do?

[scarlettsmummy2]

My three and a half year old daughter is due to start in a pre prep class in August at a fairly academic independent school. I am now in a bit of a panic that she won't be able to keep up with her peers!

At the minute she can speak competently and hold a full conversation, she can do fifty piece puzzles on her own, appears to have decent physical co ordination and can count up to ten- but not backwards. She can't write her name yet. Has anyone any other suggestions of things I could maybe encourage her to do? We have been playing snakes and ladders over the last couple of days but she can't focus for long!

Thanks

Am I going mad or are we talking about THREE year olds?!?!

Its crazy enough that 3yos go to school, never mind that we are worrying about them being bright and fitting into a very academic setting. I think we all need a reality check!

FWIW, my 3.2yo DS can't read, write, count backwards, or do a 50 piece puzzle.
He can count to 10, he can hold a conversation, he can undress himself, wash his hands, wipe himself. He can also spot tiny creatures from a great distance, go down a slide in 100 different and dangerous ways, do a forward roll, recognise car makes, and do eskimo kisses!!

My DD spent nursery and reception adamently refusing to learn to read. And now, in Y1 she is doing great, and can't put books down. They will all get there in their own time, as long as they are supported but not pressurised.

A young childs brain is geared up to learn through play and they soak up the world around them. as already mentioned imagination and role play helps them to make sense of this big beautiful world that they are a part of

Learning Through Play doesn't mean putting them in the playroom and saying "get on with it dear" A teddy bears tea party teaches co-ordination and social skills A walk in the country can trigger a conversation about the things you see; Flowers, birds, insects and much more playing shops can help them to understand where things come from Dressing up and pretending to be someone else building towns and much more out of lego/duplo being read to meeting other children and learning social skills, going to the park, riding on a bus taking the train getting really messy with paint, using playdough making a collage out of interesting bits and bobs! all these things are learning but the most important thing is; It's FUN!

Learning through play requires a lot of planning to be effective. The teacher provides a suitable enviornment to stretch the child's skills. I think that the foundation stage is better for a bright child than the more formal style of year 1.

I've never really liked the idea of just learning through play, I thought it seemed a bit of cop out. But as my daughter (who is only 2.6yr) gets older I realise it's just what happens naturally. I've never sat and taught her how to count, but she loves hide and seek and so I used to count to 5 whilst she hid (always under the blanket on the couch!) and she started to pick it up. As she's got better at it I add a couple of extra numbers in and she's gradually picked them up. She also likes to 'spell', again only picked up because she's heard me and DH spelling out words such as ice-cream, if we're trying to communicate without her getting the gist. If this natural encouragement is what learning through play is I'm all for it. But I agree that learning social skills and practical skills is probably the most important, but again only ever encouraged at a child's own rate.

The little boy I look after at the moment is bright and happy mumtoAG I do so agree with you. my small charge has learnt to count just by picking out different coloured car's as we wait for buses. He can hold a conversation with people we meet in the course of the day. He can tell stories and make up songs. and I have always encouraged learning through play.

When I first trained as a nanny; The PreSchool Learning Alliance were very much in evidence and learning throuh play was considered to be the best way forward for Pre-School children. I did several courses with them while I helped out in a Pre-School.

I have always found it very effective and have left lots of very bright happy well balanced children in my wake to prove it (some of them now grown up and doing well in life

A bright child is more likely to be bored in a formal learning environment than in learning through play. No child with reasonable social skills should find learning through play boring if it is planned properly.

At 3 1/2 you don't really know how bright a child is, for instance at 3 1/2 DS1 was reading ORT level 5 books but DS2 at just over 4 does not even know all his phonics yet, by the time he is in Y1 I am sure he'll be able to read well and maybe just as well as DS1, there are plenty of children in DS1s class who couldn't read when they started but were way above average by the end of YR. I am not really sure how important the academic stuff is in regards to their learning later on but I do know for sure that the social stuff is extremely important.

If she is showing an interest then you can teach her the basic phonics and also just being able to count to 10 is just learning parrot fashion, if you start ensuring she knows what the numbers actually are (recognising them out of order/counting objects/sorting objects) this is more useful. All these things can be fun rather than formal learning.

Don't think I would worry about academic ability (in fact I think I'm finding some of the posts here really scary).
I would worry more about how she gets on in a group setting and being able to look after herself. Starting teaching letters in a formal way doesn't mean in any way that they'll be reading earlier than others, in fact if it's not taught correctly it could have a detrimental effect. What a mad world!

My DS (2.8) can insert a finger up both nostrils at the same time

I agree sunshine nanny you can learn lots this way. How sad that some parents sit down with books and try and teach a three year old let children be children and grow up naturally.

Missbehaveingunderthemistlotoe well done to your ds did it take you long to teach him this?

Hardly any time at all redglow he's quite clearly a child gifted with natural ability

I second what Rubirosa said early on and was accused of being jealous for! Seriously get out the play dough - it strengthens the hands and fingers essential for writing!

Also support the learning through play posters.

How ridiculous to say rubirosa was jealous I missed that just reread the thread.

Brighter children will not get bored learning through play don't you think three year olds should be playing.?

My 3.1 DD seemed to be very keen on learning letters, words etc and I went as far as asking advice on MN, buying a few workbooks and asking the schools what phonics programmes they use.

Then decided that I was being crazy - she's got a good 14 years + of schooling ahead, we're hoping to aim her at the London super-selectives at 11+ so probably some pretty intensive study as well. Why rush it?

So we have no fridge letters or numbers, I put the workbooks in a cupboard and we do other things - visits to museums, collecting pine-cones and leaves in the woods and making things with them, visits to playgrounds, dolly tea-parties and so on. We do read a lot of books together but concentrate on the story not letters or words. There really are masses of things you can do with bright kids that don't involve any kind of formal learning.

She goes to a private nursery 3 days a week (9-4) and I chose one that does almost entirely free-play. She loves it and is super-excited about going to a more formal learning nursery school in September.

She's a bright kid and I know she would happily learn to read etc if I encouraged it. I'd rather she went to school knowing nothing and got excited about it all being new and fun rather than BTDT. She can count to 20 and count out objects/stairs, can recognise her name, sing the ABC song, knows a gazillion nursery rhymes, can put her clothes on and off, can use a knife and fork and she has decided to swap the nappy for knickers 3 weeks ago, so I reckon we are good to go.

FWIW, I went to hot-housing preps as did my siblings and it made zero difference if you could read before you went or not, we all did by the end of the first year.

God. This makes me feel miserable, talk of keeping up with peers at age 3. The pushiest parents should make sure to have some savings set aside for counselling in later life, just in case.

OP - listen to the people talking about learning through play. Don't get sucked into a load of competitive bollocks.

DD is 3.2 and knows her alphabet in order, can read far more than I think she can, and is beginning to write her name (She knows the letters, just doesn't form them very recognisably yet). She has good pencil grip, loves tracing and dot-to-dots. She can count up to 49 independently and up to 110 with help with the tens numbers between 50 and 90. She can also count objects up to about 20 pretty reliably. She can do 25 piece puzzles on her own and 50 piece with help. She is beginning to use a knife and fork but prefers just fork or fingers!

However, she has a physical disability which means she is a wobbly walker, gets tired quickly, cannot run, jump, dress, undress and isn't yet out of nappies.

I am an ex-primary teacher. I always vowed I wouldn't teach a child to read before they went to school. However, I was unable to stop her - she would pick up a letter and bring it to me to ask me what letter it was (letter sounds). Having gone through them a number of times - at her volition, she then taught herself the letter names and the capital letters. She would also sound out words wherever we were - menus, signs, etc - and then ask me what it said. Soon she started reading the words herself. I have now got her some Jolly Phonics stuff and we get books from the library for her to read. My reasoning is that if she was interested in dinosaurs, I'd get her dinosaur stuff to look at/play with. She'd interested in words, so I've got her books and some workbooks. It's all the same really.

She's never going to appear highly athletic/sporty next to her friends (she may get into disability sports, but running in the playground she's never going to be the fastest), so if she's good academically, that's fine by me. I'm not competitive about it - I wish she'd stop making so much progress in reading etc because I don't want her to get bored at school - but equally, I'm not going to stop her doing things that interest her because other people think I'm competitive parenting!

Ds is 3.1 and will be staying at his private nursery for pre school. He can: sound out and blend up to CVC words to read stage 1 books, talk about stories, count to 20 consistently and over 20 a bit, recognise numbers to 10, add and subtract using toys/ objects and use correct vocab, say 1 more/ less than a number, tell o'clock times, recognise all regular shapes and colours, write his first name, read his first and surname and family member's names, write shaky but readable letters and numbers, build passable Lego vehicles, ride a bike, do puzzles when interested, dress and undress but not do zips or buttons, use the toilet independantly, use a knife and fork, play imaginatively, start and carry on a conversation with adults and children ( whether they like it or not lol!!) sing and dance. That sounds like a lot but we don't really do much academic stuff and certainly never workbooks except his cbeebies magazine. We do a lot of painting, craft, Playdoh, reading etc which opens up opportunities for informal learning.

Wow that was long! Sorry :)

We autonomously home ed (so child -led) and he's almost 4 but...

He can use the potty mostly (wees only at the moment and he's only learnt in the past couple of weeks, completely umprompted)
Knows his alphabet
Can count to around 30 unaided and higher with help
Can write most of the alphabet
Can write most numbers
Can do jigsaws with help
Can identify most animals
Can identify some flowers/plants
Can identify most fruit/veg
Is interested in reading (as another person said reading eggs is good)

I'm sure there's others but that's what I can remember off the top of my head. All of what he has learnt he has done when he was interested and ready, and he asks for help when he needs it.

As someone else said, all kids are different and learn at different rates.

"Everyone catches up" - no empirical evidence for this at all, plenty of evidence to the contray, children in the 91st+ percentile for general intelligence at age three remain so at the age of seven and into the future.
A child starting school with below average IQ will be viewed as slow, in the system the slow get slower while the bright get brighter year on year, the variation in a Year 2 class is staggering.
Don't fall for the idea that doing nothing or learning through play will enable your child to reach their own potential.
Consider goggling Zig Eldelmann.

Actually, the empirical evidence suggests that hothousing doesn't work. So, whilst intelligence may remain fairly stable, things that are taught are not necessarily a sign of intelligence.

I am not suggesting that all children who, for example, read early are just trained monkies (do excuse the term, I don't think there is anything wrong with teaching a child to read early if it is done in a fun way), and a child who reads very early probably is fairly intelligent, it isn't the case that children who don't learn to read until they are in school for example, are automatically less intelligent.

You don't have to be tutoring a 3 year old for them to reach their full potential.

Intelligence doesn't remain stable, it grows and shrinks depending on the stimulation in the enviroment.

Inate intelligence will not emerge as academic success unless sufficient stimulous is given to enable the mind to stretch and grow.

A stimulating enviroment ranges from kicking leaves up in the park to counting leaves on a kumon worksheet for a three year old, it's all important, so important that it should be at times well prepared and building in complexity, in my view.

Yes you absolutley can teach a three year old and done thoughtfully and well they will have a large and long-term academic advantage.

ally - I'd be interested to read the evidence your thinking of that contradicts this - would you be able to provide a link ?

I just have this feeling that if one lives in a stimulating environment the use of worksheets is unnecessary and if you live in an unstimulating environment the use of worksheets is unlikely to make much difference.

I don't know how to put it, and I have nothing to back it up, but either your parents have enquiring minds or they don't, surely this is what makes the difference in terms of environment?

PasseBlanc- it is not that you have wasted your time, every child is different and every parent is different. It is really depends on what your child enjoys and how you do it. There are so many other important things that children need to be learning at this age- focusing on academics too early might take time away from what they should be spending time doing. For some- focusing too much on the academics can also be counterproductive.

I feel sorry for kids whose parents prioritise academics above everything those children often associate numbers/writing/reading with boredom or punishment. Some have been taught bad habits such as learning to write their names all in capitals. They lose the intrinsic motivation to learn these skills and are often difficult to teach (or you waste time helping un-do the bad habits)