Milestones by Year

Five children sitting on the floor smiling and playing with toys

Child development professionals define specific milestones for parents and child care professionals to track a child’s development. 

Your preschooler will continue to show growth in Social/Emotional, Language/Communication, Cognitive/Learning, and Physical/Movement skills. Watching your child’s developmental milestones can help you choose activities and engagements to continue encouraging healthy growth and development.

For more information about tracking your child’s developmental milestones, download the CDC milestone tracker app.

3 Years

A typically developing 3-year-old should demonstrate the following skills. These milestones are provided by the Center for Disease Control's "Learn the signs. Act early" campaign. A checklist of milestones for 3-year-olds can be found here.

Social and Emotional skills:

  • Copies adults and friends
  • Shows a wide range of emotions
  • Dresses and undresses self

Language/Communication skills:

  • Understands words like “in,” “on,” and “under”
  • Says first name, age, and sex
  • Names a friend

Cognitive/Learning skills:

  • Turns book pages one at a time
  • Screws and unscrews jar lids or turns the door handle
  • Understands what “two” means

Physical Development/Movement skills:

  • Runs easily
  • Pedals a tricycle (3-wheel bike)
  • Walks up and downstairs, one foot on each step

 

4 Years

These examples of milestones for 4-year-olds are taken from the Center for Disease Control's "Learn the signs. Act early" campaign. A checklist of milestones for 4-year-olds can be found here.

Social and Emotional skills:

  • Enjoys doing new things
  • Is more and more creative with make-believe play
  • Often can’t tell what’s real and what’s make-believe

Language/Communication skills:

  • Knows some basic rules of grammar, such as correctly using “he” and “she”
  • Tells stories
  • Sings a song or says a poem from memory

Cognitive/Learning skills:

  • Names some colors and some numbers
  • Starts to copy some capital letters
  • Starts to understand time

Physical Development/Movement skills:

  • Hops and stands on one foot for up to 2 seconds
  • Catches a bounced ball most of the time
  • Pours, cuts with supervision, and mashes own food

 

5 Years

A 5-year-old begins showing these examples of developmental milestones. These examples were taken from a more complete list in the Center for Disease Control's "Learn the signs. Act early" campaign. A checklist of milestones for 5-year-olds can be found here.

Social and Emotional skills:

  • Likes to sing, dance, and act
  • Can tell what’s real and what’s make-believe
  • Wants to please friends

Language/Communication skills:

  • Speaks very clearly
  • Uses future tense; for example, “Grandma will be here.”
  • Says name and address

Cognitive/Learning skills:

  • Counts 10 or more things
  • Copies a triangle and other geometric shapes
  • Can draw a person with at least 6 body parts

Physical Development/Movement skills:

  • Hops; may be able to skip
  • Can do a somersault
  • Can use the toilet on her own