Understanding Two- and 6 Understanding Two- and Three-Year-Olds

Key Concepts Two-year-olds have improved motor control and expressive language skills. Patience is key to working with two-year-olds as they tend to be negative, become frustrated, and have temper tantrums. Three-year-olds have better coordination, more mature thinking skills, and are typically eager to please.

Objectives Describe the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development of two-year-olds. Explain how three-year-olds develop physically, cognitively, socially, and emotionally. Relate how the development of two- and three-year-olds will affect your role as a teacher.

Physical Development of Two-Year-Olds Two-year-old children continue to grow physically, but the rapid growth in infancy tapers off Characteristics of two-year-olds’ physical development include gross-motor development fine-motor development self-help skills

Gross-Motor Development Improved coordination and body control Like playing with balls More control in leg and foot muscles Balancing, jumping, and riding

Fine-Motor Development Finger dexterity and control Using writing tools Hand preference is developed Building with blocks

Self-Help Skills Two-year-olds can undress themselves begin to dress themselves can drink from a cup without help; use a straw start to eat with a spoon begin toilet learning

Cognitive Development of Two-Year-Olds Two-year-olds’ cognitive development focuses on three main areas Language comprehension skills Expressive language skills Math readiness skills

Language Comprehension Skills Language comprehension is a person’s understanding of language Grows rapidly in two-year-olds Follow directions and answer simple questions Understand pronouns Understand the difference between soft and heavy or big and tall Start to understand words related to space

Expressive Language Skills Expressive language is the ability to produce language forms Speech involving simple sentences Two language strategies work best with two-year-olds Feeding-in: you provide the child’s language Expansion: you expand the child’s language

Math Readiness Skills Math skills develop as children interact with others and with objects Size concepts include big and small Awareness of shapes, forms, and colors Sorting objects

Social-Emotional Development of Two-Year-Olds Social development Play next to each other, but not cooperatively More interested in adults Can be possessive Sharing is difficult Are usually affectionate continued

Social-Emotional Development of Two-Year-Olds Like to control their surroundings Can get frustrated Are afraid of being harmed Very imaginative Are loving and caring Need security and routine

Discuss Why do you think patience is an important quality when you work with two-year-olds?

Teaching Two-Year-Olds Working with two-year-olds requires gentle and firm guidance understanding that they are egocentric flexibility and patience ability to handle noise and control it routine and predictable schedules ability to handle temper tantrums

Brainstorm Suggest some strategies you can use to control the noise level in a room with two-year-old children.

Physical Development of Three-Year-Olds Three-year-olds continue to develop in gross-motor development fine-motor development self-help skills

Gross-Motor Development With better coordination, three-year-olds are able to throw, jump, and hop climb and descend stairs catch balls with their arms ride and steer tricycles balance on one foot for up to eight seconds hop on one foot up to three times

Fine-Motor Development Fine-motor skills of three-year-olds include using scissors to cut paper reproducing simple shapes and tracing manipulating blocks and puzzle pieces

Self-Help Skills Three-year-olds become increasingly self-sufficient Can turn the water faucet on and off Are better at dressing themselves Use knives during mealtime Have almost full control over toilet routines

Discuss What are some construction features that manufacturers of children’s clothing might use to help three-year-olds dress and undress themselves?

Cognitive Development of Three-Year-Olds By the third birthday, the ability to think matures, improving language comprehension skills expressive language skills math readiness skills

Language Comprehension Skills Understanding of language continues to grow in three-year-olds They begin to understand the pronouns you and they Understand who, whose, why, and how Spatial concepts such as toward, up, top, and next become clearer

Expressive Language Skills Children’s ability to produce language continues to increase More than 900 words; improved grammar Use longer and more complex sentences Understand possessive nouns Differentiate past and present tense Start to use question words Talk out loud to themselves

Math Readiness Skills Three-year-olds continue to learn basic math concepts Understand full, less, smaller, and empty Begin to develop counting skills Distinguish between one and many

Brainstorm Name some activities you can use with three-year-olds that might contribute to the development of their counting skills.

Social-Emotional Development of Three-Year-Olds After the third birthday, children outgrow temper tantrums and become more agreeable and form friendships Social development Emotional development

Social Development Social development during this age involves using new ways to show concerns for others learning positive ways to get attention adjusting to new people more easily playing with, rather than next to, other children using language to communicate with friends recognizing gender roles, or the expected behaviors of girls or boys

Emotional Development Emotional development during this age includes showing strong visible emotions less frustration, more eager to please developing control over their strong feelings beginning to develop a self-concept showing affection and imitating adults

Reflect Why do you think three-year-olds are less likely to get frustrated than two-year-olds?

Teaching Three-Year-Olds When teaching three-year-olds, consider they are happy, sociable, and agreeable adjust easily to new adults, classmates, and situations like playing alone and in groups of two or three enjoy dramatic play are becoming increasingly independent

Review Name three ways in which two-year-olds differ from three-year-olds developmentally. The key to working with two-year-olds is _____ because they tend to be negative, become easily frustrated, and can have temper trantrums. Are two-year-olds or three-year-olds more eager to please? Why?

Glossary egocentric. Quality of people believing everyone thinks as they do. expressive language. The ability to produce language forms; used to express a person’s thoughts to others. gender roles. Behaviors expected of girls or boys.

Glossary language comprehension. An understanding of language. Sometimes referred to as receptive or inner language. self-concept. Qualities a child believes he or she possesses. A result of beliefs, feelings, and perceptions a child has of himself or herself as part of the world.