Early Childhood Development in 8 Specific Areas

Fine Motor Development:
Fine motor movements involve the coordination of
small muscles in the hands and fingers. Strong
fine motor skills are essential to complete tasks
such as writing, cutting, using a fork or spoon,
threading beads, moving puzzle pieces, zipping,
buttoning, and tying shoe laces. Without well-
developed fine motor skills, a child may have
difficulty learning to write or performing many
of the other critical tasks presented in the
preschool and kindergarten classrooms.

Auditory Processing:
Auditory processing is the ability to recognize,
interpret, and analyze spoken language. Strong
auditory processing skills are critical components
of two different activities in the classroom: following
a teacher’s instructions and successfully interacting with peers.

Visual Discrimination:
Visual discrimination is the ability to identify differences
in visual images. Many parts of a preschool or kindergarten
classroom use visual imagery, including: 1) Reading and writing;
2) Mathematics; 3) Social studies and science; and
4) Social interactions.

Letter and Word Awareness:
Letter and Word Awareness is the ability to identify individual
written letters and words. Once children are able to identify
printed letters, they develop the ability to identify entire words.
The entire developmental progression from letter awareness to word awareness to fluent reading typically begins around age three with letter awareness and continues through age five, six or seven with fluent reading.

Phonemic Awareness:
Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize, differentiate and
manipulate the individual sound units in spoken words. As if the term “sound units” wasn’t pretentious enough, early childhood educators and speech therapists often refer to individual sound units as “phonemes.” Phonemes are more than just syllables. The word “hat” has one syllable, but three phonemes: the /h/ sound, the /a/ sound and the /t/ sound.

Math and Number Awareness:
Math and Number Awareness involves a variety of skills, including: 1)Numeral identification (recognizing all 10 numerals from 0 through 9 and knowing each numeral’s name); 2) Counting; 3) One-to-one correspondence; 4) Counting on; 5) Patterning recognition and creation; and 6) Sorting and classifying.

Social and Emotional Development:
Children learn best when they are comfortable in their environment. When children feel comfortable, they can relax in their surroundings and concentrate on the lessons being taught.

Gross Motor Development:
Gross motor skills involve movement of the large muscles in arms, legs, and torso. Gross motor activities include walking, running, skipping, jumping, throwing, climbing and many others. It may be easiest to think of “gross motor” skills as skills most utilized in a gym class or on a playground.
Gross motor skills also include small movements of the large muscle groups. There are always a few children in every preschool or kindergarten classroom who suddenly fall out of their chair during a lesson. In each case, the child was probably shifting his weight, but inadvertently moved his leg, hip or torso
muscles too much, causing him to fall out of his chair.
Preschool and kindergarten children need strong gross motor skills so they can engage in age-appropriate physical activities (such as running, climbing, and throwing) and so they can participate in classroom activities that require body control (such as walking in a crowded room or sitting still during a lesson).