5 Years: Learning to Get Along With Others

At this point, your child is learning to master the more formal skills of life, such as relating with peers according to rules. They are beginning to, or can completely, take care of their personal needs independently (using the bathroom, eating meals, washing hands). For the majority of children at this stage, things are either “right” or “wrong” and there are no “gray” areas. Though kindergartners may not require as much sleep as preschoolers, they may tire out at the end of the day due to high levels of activity throughout the day. 

At This Stage, Your Child May Be

• Learning to participate in group activities but may not yet have a sense of group loyalty
• Acquiring a sense of humor (but may not understand sarcasm)
• Becoming sensitive to what others think
• Defining what it means to be a boy or girl
• Learning to share and take turns
• Gaining a sense of competence
• Seeking affirmation by adults
• Imitating adults
• Beginning to set standards for their own behavior and learning greater self-control
• Learning to handle a widerange of emotions
• Refining hand-eye coordination
• Refining the skills of climbing, running, skipping, hopping and tumbling
• Developing a sense of rhythm
• Increasing problem-solving skills
• Expanding vocabulary skills, allowing them to express interests, thoughts and feelings
• Using language skills as a means of socialization
• Beginning to understand concepts of the life cycle (e.g., death)
• Naming uppercase and lowercase letters, matching those letters with their sounds, and printing them
• Using a combination of drawing, dictating and writing to describe an event, includingtheir reaction to what happened
• Learning to recognize, spell and properly use those little grammatical words that hold language together (e.g., a, the, to, of, from, I, is, are)
• Counting objects to tell how many there are
• Comparing two groups of objects to tell which group, if either, has more; comparing two written numbers to tell which is greater
• Adding and subtracting very small numbers quickly and accurately (e.g., 3 + 1) 
  

Things You Can Do Every Day to Help Your Child Develop

• Read books with them, such as Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman or Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. Ask them to explain their favorite parts of the story. Share your own ideas.
• Encourage them to tell you about their day at school. Keep paper, markers or crayons around the house so they can write letters or words or draw a picture about their day. Have them describe the picture to you.
• Play word games like “I Spy,” sing songs like “Itsy Bitsy Spider”and make silly rhymes together.
• Look for word problems in real life. For example, play “Write the Next Number.” You write a number and have your child write the next number. Or ask your child questions that require counting as many as 20 things, such as how many books they have that are about wild animals. Or ask questions that require comparing numbers such as, “Who is wearing more bracelets? You or your sister?” 

School Success

To see what to expect in kindergarten and to learn how you can support your child’s school success, visit PTA.org.