As you watch your child grow and change from a baby to a toddler to a primary school student, it is good to have some idea of what changes to expect. PBS.org has a child development tracker that lets parents know the ways in which a child will grow in knowledge over time.
If your child is going to be six years old this year, here is some of what you can expect:
- At this age, a child is taking in a processing a lot of new words. This is a time when "their language moves beyond communication to provide a foundation for learning, including the development of independent reading skills."
- If your six-year-old is a first grader, you will see that at this point your child can really read on his or her own. It is important to encourage your child to read a lot: age-appropriate books and magazines, food labels, signs. You want to use your child's enthusiasm for increasing reading skills to make sure he or she learns lost of new words.
- At this age, children who are reading also want to write; they will want to write and draw stories of their own. These stories may come from their imaginations or be based on things they've seen and read.
This fall you can keep your child’s mind stimulated by enrolling him or her in one of our afterschool programs. Our 21st Century Community Learning Centers deliver hundreds of engaging learning activities specially designed to promote student desire to learn. We provide a learning environment that is different from school so concepts learned in the classroom may be reinforced in a different setting.
