Child development

Here are the development milestones you should be looking out for if your child is aged between 3 and 4 years old:

Communication

• likes listening to longer stories and remembers a lot of what happens 
• uses lots of different words and likes learning new words
• understands more complicated questions and instructions that have 2 parts like 'please get your coat and wait at the door’
• understands when you ask them a question about why something has happened like ‘why do you think the caterpillar got so big?’
• knows lots of nursery rhymes and songs and enjoys singing them
• tells you long stories and talks about their favourite books
• learning word endings, still making mistakes such as ‘runned’ for ‘ran’
• learning to pronounce some words with tricky sounds like ‘j’, ‘th’, ‘ch’ and ‘sh’
• using long sentence of 4 to 6 words
• using words and actions to explain thoughts and ideas
• can give their point of view and disagree 
• likes having long conversations
• pretend talking in play like 'let’s go on the bus…you sit there…I'll be the driver’.

Personal, social and emotional

• becoming more independent
• enjoys being given resources and activities they can use by themselves
• likes responsibility and helping with jobs like fetching fruit for everyone or washing up their plate after a snack
• more confident interacting with new people
• confident to go out on short walks and trips
• likes to play with other children and can build on ideas in their play
• learning that rules are important and following them most of the time
• remembers rules and doesn’t need an adult to remind them
• learning to assert themselves in appropriate ways
• talks to friends to solve problems that might happen when playing
• uses different words to explain how they are feeling
• starting to understand how other people might be feeling.

Self-care

• can use the toilet by themselves by 4 years old
• keen to be independent, especially around dressing and feeding themselves
• can do up buttons, zips and can pour themselves a drink
• can brush their own teeth
• can wash and dry their hands thoroughly.

Physical

• developing physical skills like balancing, riding and ball skills
• walking up steps, stairs and climbing equipment using alternate feet
• can skip, hop, stand on one leg and hold a pose for a game like musical statues
• can wave flags and streamers using large muscle movements
• can paint and make marks on a big scale
• likes to join in with group and team activities, sometimes making these up with their friends
• learning to use and remember patterns of movement to music and rhythm
• can think carefully about which movement they need to make, like whether to crawl, walk or run across a plank, depending on its length and width
• can choose the right tools for what they need to do
• can work with friends to move and carry large objects like big blocks
• can use one handed tools such as scissors
• having a comfortable grip and good control when holding pens and pencils
• showing whether they are left or right handed.

For support to help your child reach these milestones, see our support for your child's development page.