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Kindergarten Milestones

Is your child ready for kindergarten? Take a look at our milestones below and see if your child needs speech therapy, occupational therapy, or feeding therapy services.

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KINDERGARTEN

Emotional Maturity

  • Separates from parents with ease
  • Stays focused on classroom activities
  • Makes eye contact with adults
  • Independently selects activities that interest them
  • Easily responds to redirection
  • Uses words to express wants and needs instead of resorting to actions or aggression
  • Communicates stories, shares ideas, and expresses feelings with words

Social Maturity

  • Plays independently
  • Plays alongside peers
  • Cooperates in group play
  • Takes turns willingly
  • Shows empathy and concern for friends
  • Offers help to friends when needed
  • Adjusts easily to changes in routine

Cognitive/Literacy Skills

  • Recognizes their first name when written

  • Can print their first name

  • Can print their last name

  • Recites the alphabet

  • Can identify at least 10 uppercase letters

  • Can identify at least 10 lowercase letters

  • Knows letter sounds

  • Matches letters with the beginning sound of a word
    (e.g., matches “B” with a picture of a “Ball”)

  • Identifies rhyming words (e.g., cat/hat)

  • Understands basic concepts like “top,” “bottom,” “big,” and “little”

  • Recognizes the names of at least 5 colors (e.g., red, blue, yellow, green, black)

  • Matches two items that are the same

  • Sorts objects by shape, color, or size

  • Groups items that go together (e.g., spoon and fork)

  • Can draw a repeating pattern (e.g., circle, circle, square)

  • Can arrange pictures in a logical sequence (e.g., bath, towel, clothes)

  • Recites their name, address, and phone number

  • Can tell their age

Math Skills

  • Can count up to 10
  • Identifies numbers 1-10
  • Can write numbers 1-10 in correct order (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)
  • Can count at least 5 objects (e.g., 5 blocks)
  • Understands that a number represents a quantity (e.g., 3 means 3 bananas)
  • Can add and subtract objects, like cookies
  • Uses objects to demonstrate concepts of “more” and “less”
  • Recognizes and names shapes
  • Knows basic colors
  • Understands spatial concepts such as over, under, above, below, and through

Science Skills

  • Identifies all the parts of the body
  • Identifies all 5 senses (sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing)

Gross Motor Skills 3-4 Years Old

  • Navigate a set of stairs with alternating pattern
  • Catching a large ball with hands only from 5 feet away
  • Jumps forward 2 feet 
  • Throws a ball overhand to hit target 5 feet away
  • Hops 3-5x on each foot

Gross Motor Skills 4-4.5 Years Old

  • Gallops 10 feet
  • Skips 8 feet
  • Rides a 2 wheeled bike with training wheels
  • Catches a small ball with hands only from 5 feet away
  • Pumps self on swing
  • Able to jump over a partner turned rope
  • Jumps over 10-inch hurdle
  • Imitates 4 positions

Gross Motor Skills 5 Years Old

  • Stands on one foot for 10 seconds
  • Performs 10 jumping jacks with coordination
  • Rides a 2 wheeled bike without training wheels

Fine Motor Skills 3-4 Years Old

  • Traces around the edges of basic shapes
  • Copies a horizontal line and circle
  • Makes continuous cuts with child-safe scissors
  • Dresses self with help with fasteners
  • Can put on and take off coat
  • Puts shoes on correct feet
  • Fastens large buttons
  • Brushes own teeth
  • Draws a person with 3 different body parts
  • Cuts a piece of paper in half with scissors
  • Uses restroom independently
  • Washes own hands

Fine Motor Skills 4-4.5 Year Olds

  • Puts socks on correctly
  • Traces simple shapes (i.e.., circle, square, triangle, rectangle)
  • Draws simple shapes (i.e.., circle, square, triangle, rectangle)
  • Cuts out simple shapes (i.e.., circle, square, triangle, rectangle)
  • Cuts on a line
  • Holds scissors correctly
  • Zips most zippers

Fine Motor Skills 5 Year Olds

  • Prints first name
  • Draws a person with 6 or more different parts
  • Cuts well with scissors
  • Uses pincer grasp with pencil
  • Shows hand preference

Language and Social Skills 3-4 Years Old

  • Follows simple 3-step related commands (i.e.., get your coat off the hook, put it on and get in line)
  • Begins to use adjectives for color and size
  • Responds to “wh- “questions (who, what, where, when, why)
  • Asks many questions
  • Uses most speech sounds correctly
  • Will put toys away when asked
  • Will follow directions to get own items like pencil, book, coat

Language and Social Skills 5 Years Old

  • Appropriate eye contact
  • Pretend plays
  • Initiates simple greetings
  • Does well with sharing and taking turns
  • Asks for permission
  • Can carry a plot when telling a story
  • Understands time concepts (yesterday, today, first, then, next, last week)
  • Initiates and joins in conversations with friends and adults
  • Ask questions about how things around him/her work
  • Recites or sings familiar nursery rhymes
  • Holds a book correctly
  • Tells a story from a picture
  • Able to retell a simple story