2. Understanding Two- and6
Understanding Two- and
Three-Year-Olds

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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

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

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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

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

16. 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

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

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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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

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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

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

28. 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

29. 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

30. 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

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

32. 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

33. 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?

34. 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.

35. 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.