When Should My 3 Old Know

i have a 3 year old son, too. he can speak fairly clearly ( the doctor told me that i should understand everything he says and the rest of the world should understand about half). he knows some colors and letter... he can say the ABC's, sorta, but he wouldn't pick them outta a line up... i know that they say it's not good to compare kids, but if you want to gimme a shout...

F.,

I am a teacher and believe me when I tell you that NO!!!!! Your son should NOT know all the letters, how to write his name, etc. Most children are not physically able to do such things until AT LEAST age four!!! It is great that you are so "hands on" with your son and want to teach him about the world around him but please please please do not get caught up in what skills you think he might need to take to college with him just yet. All of that will come. For now, the most important thing you can do with him is let him run, jump and climb as much as possible. For fine motor skills ALWAYS follow gross motor skills. The more time he spends out on the playground now, the more his body will be ready to sit at a desk and learn when the time comes!

I have a 3yr old son and he knows his colors and some shapes. He also knows his name but just can't yet spell it out but he can look at it and know that's his name. He can count really good to 10 and he is getting a little better counting to 20. He knows his ABC's and alot of more other stuff. His grandma has been teaching him alot. He speaks very clearly. I would suggest something that I saw at his grandmas house, she labeled all the furniture and everything else around the house with the name. They go around saying all the names and she tells him this is what this is called. That has work very well. I think it would be good to get him coloring books that will teach him as he goes and also some flash cards. You've got to have alot of patience as well. He also watches PBS in the morning, he's learn alot thru those TV shows. He especially loves Curious George. Well, good luck...

F.!!! Please!!! your son is only 3!!! I mean "fun teaching" at this age is fine..but pushing it...come one!!! Is this your first child? It seems as if he is. Ok..i completely understand, but don't be too histerical about this. He'll get it all. You might bore him to death. Yes, he will be prepared when he goes to school, but he might get bored too. It is not like they are going to jump him right to college when they find out he knows his ABCs and his colors. Most kids know this at 3yrs old.

Hello F.,
Great question. I feel the same way. I try to teach my son how to spell and write his name but, he is not interested yet. He knows his ABC's, 123's, colors and working on the shapes. They all learn at their own pace. Baby Eistein Dvd's are great learning tools and they are fun. Don't put too much pressure on yourself or him. Good luck.

J. Klapat
www.deliveringonthepromise.com/40420383

Hi F.,

First off, every child is different. My daughter is 2 and has a cousin the same age, they are at diffrent levels! She can talk very clearly, identify letters, colors and more. Her cousin on the other had, you cannot understand a word, he is very spoiled, and doesn't know how to put a bisic puzzle together. So, if I were you, I would not worry at all!!! It doesn't matter what other people say that he should be doing. Having him learning is great, and it sounds like he does learn. That is all that matters. Now if you were teaching him and he wasn't learning or not picking up any new words or anything then you might want to take him to a therapist that works with speech development or something like that. If he learned how to potty train, then you're fine for when he starts school. They'll teach him to spell his name there. What you might want to do with him is go to www.starfall.com and they have an interactive ABC tools on there, I'm sure he'd love to be on the computer like mommy!!

GOOD LUCK,
CJR

I think every kid is different. My three year old can sing the alphabet, but he can't tell you what the letters look like, and he nows his main shapes. He knows all the main colors, but he cannot spell his name yet. He knows his full name but can't pick it out of other names when I write it down. But, he does go to school for 2 1/2 hours mon-fri, so that helps alot. They got him to learn most of it.

I used to teach 3 years old in preschool.

Your son is off to a great start just because he has a mom that is aware and trying to help him. Don't worry about it. Every child learns at a different pace. I have had kids that were brilliant and could write their name perfectly at this age as well as other things. I have had kids that had no clue how to write their name, much less any other letters.

The first thing my kids learned at school was to write a whole page of lines. We did squiggly lines, straight lines, vertical lines, horizontal lines. Get it? LOL They have to learn how to hold the pencil correctly, how to control it and how to not get frustrated because their lines are not perfect. They also don't need to get burned out on learning before they get to kindergarten. Learning should be an adventure for them! ;-)

fwiw my youngest (and here I was teaching school) child of my own would not write his name at this age. He barely showed interest. At 4 years old he wrote his name if the teacher told him too, but had no interest in writing that silly alphabet. Then when he got to kindergarten I had him tested. The tester actually came out to talk to me. He said the kid's IQ was way up there and kept asking me about his preschool years. I told him I teach and all I could say was he must absorb it, but not want to show it. LOL When he got about halfway through Kindergarten he loved his teacher and just wanted to please her and show off so he started 'performing'. He was writing sentences and taking spelling tests by the time he graduated kindergarten. btw his birthday is June 30th and I did not hold him back so he is the youngest in his class.

So all that to say, don't sweat it. Have fun, show him something new every week, and when he gets ready he will astound you! ;-)

ts

My son is 3, and he doesn't know his alphabet by sight. He sings that dang song all day, though! I'm not too worried about it yet and we have been playing a really fun game lately to help him understand that the song is about letters, not just a memorization thing. He'll say a letter and then we sing the song until we get to that letter then we yell the letter and stop. And then he giggles uncontrollably. Not sure why it's funny to him.

But he's loving the game and is starting to ask me to point out the letters on the page & then play the game. Who knows, maybe it's not heling, but it is making me feel like he's "learning." So maybe try our game - it makes singing that song a little better if nothing else.

Good luck!

S.

Hi F.,
I bought wooden wall letters that spell out his name, painted them and hung them in my son's bedroom. I also taught him the bingo song but substitued his name for BINGO. He learnded how to spell his name pretty quickly that way. My philosophy is to teach him colors, numbers, and his abc's in play or driving in the car. Keep it fun and don't worry if it takes him awhile there is plenty of time for him to learn all that.
R.

my good friend is a kindergarten teacher, and so I asked her this question a while back ago. My daughter is 3 and a half. She knows all of her colors and shapes, some numbers, but doesn't know her letters except for the letter L which is what her name starts with. But my friend says that it's okay. They all learn at different pace. You can encourage your child but never push if he is not interested. Just try to point out shapes, colors, numbers, etc, as you go about your daily activities. Leapfrog makes some good educational tools too. And you can always make flash cards. Another friend of mine said she taught her child colors and numbers with a set of uno cards.