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Chooses challenging tasks and shows final results
Performs (e.g., songs, finger plays, and rhymes)
Dramatic play may reflect separation or conflicts with adult (punishment of doll)
Seeks praise for good behavior
Tries to “right” a “wrong,” or fix a situation
Talks about past and future feelings as well as the causes and consequences of feelings
Talks about own needs and emotions as a means of self-control
Talks about others’ emotions and understand what elicits them (infers cause)
Walks and runs well, changes speed and direction
Catches a medium ball thrown from distance of 5 feet or more against the body
Uses pedals on tricycle alternately
Sits on a hopping ball and hops
Rolls a ball in a bowling game
Climbs ladders and jungle gyms
Imitate bilateral movements like moving arms and legs together in a exercise or dance
Skills combined into Reach/Grasp/Release
Grasp: Uses effective power grasp on tools, such as a screwdriver
Manipulates clay to make a snake, small balls, a pancake
Distinguishes writing from drawing
Release: Releases a ball with all fingers opening and thrusting
Completes simple puzzles (separate pieces or interlocking)
Uses lines and circles in drawings
Draws recognizable forms (e.g., face, flower)
Transfers food from side-to-side in mouth
Blows and wipes own nose with some help
Responds to routine bathroom times for bowel movements
Opens and closes snaps and Velcro closures
Boys stay BM free during the day
Boys tell before having to urinate
Girls enter bathroom and urinate and have BM independently (may need help with wiping)
Understands descriptive words (e.g., hot, dirty, broken, wet)
Understands spatial concepts (e.g., under, beside)
Listens for up to 20 minutes in one-on-one situations with preferred books
Follows a narrative and talks about it
Talks to self but begins talking to peers rather than adults
Understands questions about objects, people and basic routines
Regularly asks for clarification
Asks a variety of questions, including “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” “is,” and “do”
Produces some consonant clusters (e.g., st, sp, bl, fr, sw, etc.)
Produces the syllable structures: CV, VC, CCV (sky), CCVC (stop), CVCC (dogs), and VCC (egg
Awareness of and ability to rhyme emerges
Simplifies words that are multisyllabic to CV or CVCV form (e.g., banana becomes "nana")
Produces substitutions and distortions of consonants
No longer substitutes a voiced consonant for an unvoiced consonant (e.g., zun/sun)
Substitutes /f/ for voiceless /th/ (e.g., fumb/thumb)
Produces declaratives, negatives, questions, and imperatives
Produces spatial, comparative, and temporal concepts in discussion
Produces and, but, and because to combine sentences
Dresses up to represent characters and uses props in dramatic play
Talks about how the characters feel
Produces dialogue in narrative dramatic play, with the sentences building upon each other
Produces the following morphemes: Uncontractible copula (“Who’s here? I am.”)
Produces infinitive phrase “have got to..."
Uses “wh” questions (e.g., what, where, when, who, why)
Knows counting words to 10 (may be inaccurate)
Names a circle when asked “What shape is this?"
Uses pronouns as subjects and objects (I, you, he she, it, we, they; me, you him, her, it, us, them)
Learns 3-6 words a day depending on exposure and experiences
Asks questions about the pictures, vocabulary, and story
Recognizes some environmental text
Starts to memorize words, lines, or whole segments of a favorite book
Notices print in the environment and asks what it “says”
Recites familiar phrases of songs, books and rhymes
Produces rhymes in a vocal game (e.g., fat, sat, cat, rat)
Recognizes the A-B-C song and sings it, but without knowing what letters are
Distinguishes writing from drawing
Draws recognizable forms (e.g., face, flower)
Makes marks to create writing, explains what the writing “says”
Attempts to make first letter of own name, but the appearance is unconventional
Attempts to make first letter of own name, but the appearance is unconventional
Uses household objects (pillows, blankets, boxes) to create spaces to explore
Remembers finger plays and acts out sequences in dramatic play
Remembers events up to 18 months in the past
Attends to key aspects of an object or situation to figure out how to work it or solve the problem
Tries alternatives if first attempt at problem solving doesn’t work; may then ask for help
Names or sings favorite songs, finger plays, etc.
Remembers and looks for specific photos or illustrations in books (i.e. favorite pictures)
Pretends to be something with movements, such as falling leaf, snow flake, cloud, flower, etc.
Constructs structures or items for dramatic play (e.g., makes box into a car)
Creates pictures with fingers in writing position
Acts out dramatic play with others playing roles (mommy, baby)
Adjusts language and play for younger playmates
Counts using fingers, but loses track of numbers
Counts 1-5 items with one-to-one correspondence
Visually identifies “same” or “more” (may be wrong)
Understands concept of “all” or “none” relating to number of objects
Examines a small group of objects and knows which has more if there is a big discrepancy
Starts to recognize written numbers
Combines or takes away from a set to make a set of up to three objects
Knows empty/full; small/smaller; large/larger
Length/Height: Produces labels for measuring, such as tall/long
Time: Knows today, tonight, last night
Notices simple repeat patterns (short, long, short, long) in block set
Recognizes a simple pattern with one different attribute
Combines new and previous experience to sort objects by size, type, color, or shape
Recognizes and names typical circle, square, triangle
May name rectangle, but may confuse other shapes and call them rectangles
Creates a picture using one shape (snowman from circles)
Finds objects based on the location of landmarks (e.g., your hat is on the kitchen chair)
Associative socio-dramatic play among peers. (play together, but with different goals)
 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015
©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.