at what age did your kids learn their ABC's, counting, etc?

[colsxjack]

I am the parent of a 2 yr old DD. She is our first child.

I am never really sure if she is ahead, behind, right on track, being stimulated enough, over-stimulated, etc, etc, etc.

Not that it matters either way, but I do wonder sometimes.

At what age did your kid(s) learn things like ABC's, counting, identifying numbers and letters independent of each other, colours, shapes, etc?

At what age were they able to jump, walk backwards, climb the slide, dance, etc?

I suspect my daughter is ahead at some things, average at some and behind her peers at some.

I am not worried, just curious.

[Marissamom]

DD is 26 months. 

She can kind of sing the ABC's, but it's a little slurred and mispronounced

she can count to 5-7 depending on the day (we use counting to ten as a discipline tool, so she hears it a lot)

Some days she can identify A-G, but not always, no sight numbers

I think she knows blue, green, orange, pink, purple, red, and maybe green

she knows triangle and circle, she might know star

she has been able to jump since I think 20 months (she could get off the ground sometimes at 18 months)

I don't think I've ever seen her walk backwards, but I could be wrong

climb the stairs to the slide, 14 or 15 months, climb the actual slide, at 25 months she could climb the little toddler one at one of our parks

at 6 months she would dance if I held her by the armpits, by 13 months she could dance without help

[crunchy_mommy]

A lot of things my DS just learned whenever he was exposed to them... and I kind of underestimated him and/or just didn't think to expose him to some things early on and intentionally didn't (still don't) expose him to certain things like letters... But anyway...

ABC's - could sing the song around 18mos, started identifying letters around the same time but still at 2.5 only knows some of his letters AFAIK
Counting - could rote-count to 10 maybe around 21mos?? Counted actual objects to 2 or 3 around 15mos but was 2 before he could consistently count objects to 10+. I don't know if he can identify numbers, sometimes he tells me the time on the clock but he's not always accurate so he must know some of them?
Colors & shapes - 10+ of each by 15mos

Jumping - couldn't do a 2-foot jump until recently, so maybe 27mos?
Walking backwards - no idea, maybe 18mos?
Climbing the slide - 16mos or so
Dancing - he's still not really a dancer, he would bop around a bit starting at 9mos or so but never got too into any other kind of dancing

I think most of these things can really be all over the board... and like I said, exposure, particularly for the 'academic' stuff...

Edited to fix typo.
Edited by crunchy_mommy - 7/21/11 at 6:48am

[pranava]

I think it may be hard to tell what's dead on average, advanced, or a little late from threads like this because the thread tends to trend in one direction.  What I mean is, the first few posters have kids that seem quite advanced for their age, so then more people with advanced kids post and parents of kids that are average or below tend not to post.  Or the other way around.  Just a thought - there may be no validity to this theory.

I would consider my DS very advanced on some things.  Counted to 10 at 18 months.  Now at 28 months he can count objects to 10 and rote count aloud to 39, and identify numbers to 10.  If I help him out with what comes after 39, 49, 59 etc.,  he can count to 100.  He knew all letters capital and lower case and the sounds they made at 22 months.  Now at 28 months he can sound out 3 and 4 letter words.  Knew 10 colors at 18 months.  Knew lots of shapes by 24 months.  Loves singing and has probably 20 songs memorized.  I think this is all on the far end of advanced for his age.

He is also very delayed with some things and in EI physical therapy for motor skills.  Didn't climb onto furnitrue till 23 months.  Can't run, can't jump, still wants to crawl up stairs at the playground, forget about climbing slides, can't dress or undress himself, can't stand on one foot.  He can walk backwards and dance though.  Started doing those things around 18 to 20 months.

Edited by pranava - 7/21/11 at 8:34am

[Momo123]

DS is 25 months.

ABC's: Knows the song but can't really sing it by himself

Counting: 1, 2, sometimes 3

Identifying numbers and letters: Can't identify numbers yet, just starting to recognize some capital letters (3 or 4?) 

Colors: Knows most colors except black and white (learned between 18 and 24 months)

Shapes: Knows the basic ones (rectangle, square, circle, star, heart, oval) (learned between 18 and 24 months)

The colors and shapes he learned daycare.

My DS is delayed physically, he receives physical therapy through EI (since 6 months old)

Jump: Still working on it, but recently started trying to jump

Run: Started recently

Walk backwards: Around 2 years old, maybe a little before?

Climb the slide: Just recently started trying, but can't do it very well

Dance: He thinks he is dancing (LOL) but he basically just bops in place and spins around. He loves music so he's been doing this for a while now (maybe since 18 months?)

[Xerxella]

I agree with pranava.  These things can be all over the board.  My first (a boy) was very verbal and did great with letters, numbers, shapes and all that, but I think I worked with him more on it.  But, he was a slower developer physically.  He didn't walk til about 14 months, so everything followed after that.  My second (a daughter) was walking at 9 months and climbing up the stairs and the slide before then!  (Talk about giving mommy a heart attack!)  But, is behind where my son was at the same age on speech.  She's 26 months and only now starting to put the words together to really explain what she wants.  And, it's all within the range of normal. 

I remember this chart, which I had looked at before: 

http://www.babycenter.com/milestone-charts-birth-to-age-3 

Here's another one, but I think their social or emotional steps are ridiculous.  "Is willful"  "Still needs to be near parent or caregiver"  "Wants a lot of attention"  "Hates to be restrained"  "Knows what no means"  But, anyways, it'll give you some idea on where "experts" think kids should be. 

http://www.ask-nanny.com/child-development.html 

And, here's a few more: 

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/child-development/MY00136 

http://www.all-about-motherhood.com/support-files/child-development-chart.pdf 

Well, you get the idea.  Overall, there's a wide margin of normal and it seems most kids surge forward in one area and then lag on another, but it all seems to even out in the end.  Also, I have to add, I was more concerned about this with my first and then with my second I was more surprised by their differences and I knew by now about the range of normal. 

[colsxjack]

Our daughter has surprised us with some things. She is a week over 24 months.

She counts to 14 (the number of steps upstairs) since about 15months

recognize numbers from about 18 or 19 months

recognizes most letters (except some trickier ones like lower case p and q and upper case R and K) since about 20 - 22 months

out of the blue started singing ABC's at 22 months. Since about 16-18 months could do parts of the ABC's.

remembers songs

is a book fiend, and loves to be read to. She prefers longer story books to simple baby books.

recognizes most colours except grey. And sometimes mixes up orange and red or purple and blue.

recognizes and names most shapes including octagon. Has difficulty between rectangle and square.

Speaks in sentences and uses words and concepts that surprise us.

Actually tries to negotiate at a rate that surprised me and I wasn't prepared for.

All of this is probably due to her love of books. She can seriously be read 40 books a day without getting bored.

Physically she seemed to do some things early but others late.

She walked at 10 months, climbs up and down stairs. Always refused to crawl up or down them.

She can climb the monkey bars and up the slide. She can walk backwards, etc.

But she cannot jump. It is quite funny actually. She says she is jumping but does not even come close to getting any air.

She cannot dance at all. Bops up and down a bit but thats it.

She began running about 18 months, but only recently can do so without the risk of tripping on her own feet.

Her fine motor skills are not strong. She knows A LOT of signs, but cannot do very many herself, especially if they involve finger movements.

She just started being able to draw something other than a small straight line. And by that I mean she can draw a small curved line or a scribble now.

She can feed herself with a spoon, but isn't so great with a fork. She mostly likes to use her hands.

We are very fine with where she is at. Sometimes I wonder because other people that meet her seem to think she is advanced in language etc. Then I wonder if it is something we should encourage and work on her with. It is nice to see that it is not that much out of the ordinary for her to recognize the alphabet and numbers and such.

[crunchy_mommy]

Well she probably is advanced verbally, from the sound of it. She sounds almost exactly like DS actually, right down to the reading 40 books a day thing. DS is in EI for social/emotional delays and sensory issues, and they have said his verbal and fine motor skills are on par with a 4-year-old (he's 2). His gross motor skills are overall pretty average though. I kind of just follow DS's lead in the areas in which he's advanced... I try not to push him in those areas at all, i.e.I have no doubt he could learn to read if I taught him how but I don't want him to be reading so early and neglecting the social/physical activities, you know?? So I will hold off on things like that and only answer specific questions (like, "What does that word say?") until he asks for more. He does like me to define words for him though...
Edited by crunchy_mommy - 7/22/11 at 4:16am

[SilverFish]

my dd is just 17 months. 

from the list, she can:

dance, (been dancing "bopping" for months, it's getting a little bit more creative now) and 

"jump" (i.e she gets the concept and walks around saying "dump! dump!" and bending her knees) and

climb the slide and go down by herself, albeit very clumsily and never without giving poor mama a near heart-attack every time. 

that's about it... she's not even close to any of the verbal things yet. i might actually try singing the abc song to her though... she would appreciate the rhythm of it. we don't read much either. she likes to look at books on her own but isn't really into us reading to her, and anyway, i'm selfish and prefer to read my own books! i'm sure it'll come eventually. 

[Peony]

My youngest turned 2 in April. None of my kids have ever counted, done ABCs, anything like that at age 2, and he is no exception. We just started being able to sit down and read a book with him.  They all have been able to climb the slide, dance around, jump, and walk backwards, even DS and he does have some mobility issues with his feet and wears orthotics. He adores dancing and started doing that as soon as he could walk which was around 18m. My kids just work on the physical stuff first and the rest comes later. 

[MommyEnchanted]

My daughter will be 3 in a couple of weeks. At 24-30 months she knew her colors, her shapes and knew what numbers were. She couldn't count, but she would 'pretend' and count like, '2, 7, 9, 1' She loved to do this with her toys or cheerios.

Her alphabet is tricky. I don't agree with teaching the song first, so we have been working on letter recognition. She can do most of them. She also watches Word World, and yesterday she said, "Let's build a word! A, C, I, G!" I asked her what that spelled and she said, 'Crabby Patties!' I was like, O.O We don't let her watch Spongebob....

She dances like crazy. She can copy dance moves and she has a sense of balance like nobody's business, lol.  

I think your LO is right on track, tbh. With my girls, they focused on one set of skills, then when they felt they mastered it moved on to the other. Ella walked at 9 months. She did most physical things before anything else. My youngest, Anya, is focusing on speech and communication more than anything physical. Anya's first word was at 10 months. 'Yummy!' Clear as day. 

[Xavismom]

My DS is 20 months. I think he is advanced in some ways, and behind in others. I think thats pretty normal

His physical abilities, balance, and motor control are pretty great I think. He is a dancing MACHINE. Spins, jumps, hops, thows his arms about, its madness when he decides to dance! He's been doing it for quite some time, I forget exactly how long though. He was running at 11 months. He insists on going up and down stairs by himself, and he doesnt scoot, he walks, using the handrail. He freaks out if I try to help, he's been doing this for a few months. We bought him a tricycle with a parent push bar, but it took him about 10 min of it to figure out how to do the pedals. He climbs EVERYTHING. I've got some blankets laid out next to our couch now, because his favorite thing is to run across the room, leap up onto the couch, and then vault over the ends or the back.  He is really good at putting things together, like board puzzles, and lacing toys. Most of his toys are around a 3+ yr level He loves taking things apart, and figuring out how to put it back exactly the same way. He is really aware of how or where things 'go'. If I have his toys laid out a certain way on his shelves, he'll put them back in that exact same order later in the day.

I am pretty sure he is behind verbaly though, He only consistently says 'Mom' and 'Dad'. The thing that he actually says the most, is 'HUH?!' All day, its 'Huh? HUH? Mom mom mom  huh?'  He has said a few other words, but he only says them once, or twice maybe, and then we never hear them again. One time he said banana, really clearly, three times in one day. And he's never said it since!  I dont forsee him speaking anytime soon. He is pretty creative about communicating non-verbally. He does not recognize any shapes, colors, numbers or letters, even though we do read to him quite a bit, and we have toys/books with numbers and alphabet. But he does know the names of other things, like his toys.

Like, for instance, he has a block puzzle of the alphabet. He cannot identify any of the colors or the letters if I ask him (even though we go over them), but if I say 'lets do your alphabet puzzle' he goes and gets it off of his shelf, and he can put it together.

His big thing right now is his lacing blocks. He understands 'lets play with your lacing blocks' (gets it off the shelf) or 'lets put the lacing blocks away'. (puts the blocks back into the box, and back on his shelf) He likes to sort them into piles of similar shapes, but he cannot identify 'blue' or 'round' etc,  out of them. He just looks really confused when we try to label things by color or shape for him.

I do worry about his speech sometimes lately.

Edit to add: He is pretty good at naming body parts. He can point out : Hair, ears, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, shoulder, elbow, hand, fingers, belly, belly button, bum, knees, feet, and toes. And he can point out other peoples too. Like, 'where are Dads knees?'.

Edited by Xavismom - 7/22/11 at 9:22am

[hildare]

yeah, they are all different.  so different!  crazy.

dd, at 20 mos, almost 21 mos, can recognize consistently around 15 letters.  possibly more, but not with consistency and P, b, and d are troublesome.

she knows, recognizes almost all the 'normal' colors and can also say things like orange-brown and blue-green.  she's really into art. 

she can say ABCD but not the rest nor sing the song.  nor any real song, though she makes up a few with recognizable words thrown in.  she will do an approximation of you are my sunshine but i think i am the only person that recognizes it as such.

she can sight read the words "go," "dog," "moo," and "hot."  (she sight read the word hot at around 15 months or so).

recognizes around 9 or 10 shapes (from her puzzle box)

she has a pretty rocking spoken vocabulary, and her memory surprises me.  i put breastmilk in her eye 5 months ago when i thought she might have an infection and she says "boobie?  eye?" every other day or so.  it must have made an impression.  she will do some sentences on occasion, though single words are the majority of what she says unless she's repeating.

she can count (or WILL) count - correctly-- objects less than 5.  she will not count to 5 when asked, though.    i don't know if that's a different skill set or if that's a strange brain quirk or what.

she can put together puzzles for ages 3 and up, but seems to have some spatial difficulty matching the directions the images are pointing. 

she can correctly identify a few musical notes. 

physically, she began to walk at around 10 or 11 months and basically was running at that point. and climbing onto the table.

before her first birthday i have a video of her being a complete ham at a show and dancing like a wee crazed monkey. 

she likes to do things like high kicks, backwards walking, sledding on a lego box lid, and has recently begun to JUMP OFF THE COUCH.  onto her face.  over and over again.  she climbed up the steps to the slide and slid on her own a few months ago when she got the set. 

[JordanKX]

My son is a lot like Peony - physical, not so interested in the verbal.

he is 22 months. Walked backwards about 16 months, and literally Walked Backwards everywhere we went for weeks. Dances like a pro; jumps for the past month or so. Not great air, but he does it. He loves to jump OFF things... off the sofa onto the ottoman, etc. He has no fear about climbing; climbs up slides, trees, fences, anything to get higher and higher.

He talks incessantly, but often the same word repeated throughout the day. He has a lot of mispronounced words but certainly not a great vocabulary. He points as though he's counting, but does not verbalize the numbers; doesn't recognize the numbers. Colors, letters? Yeah, no. Not at all. He's just started being interested in books, and will be read to before bed. After dinner he does the more interactive books where He gets to "count" the ladybugs and find animals on the page.

He's working out some organization stuff - everything has to be aligned and in the right order. Or stacked on top of each other. And he's working out some Reality elements - when he sees an item in a book, he has to find the Real one in the house. Those are really his two big fascinations right now... not verbalizing.

[Blessed_Mom]

Originally Posted by colsxjack 

Our daughter has surprised us with some things. She is a week over 24 months.

She counts to 14 (the number of steps upstairs) since about 15months

recognize numbers from about 18 or 19 months

recognizes most letters (except some trickier ones like lower case p and q and upper case R and K) since about 20 - 22 months

out of the blue started singing ABC's at 22 months. Since about 16-18 months could do parts of the ABC's.

remembers songs

is a book fiend, and loves to be read to. She prefers longer story books to simple baby books.

recognizes most colours except grey. And sometimes mixes up orange and red or purple and blue.

recognizes and names most shapes including octagon. Has difficulty between rectangle and square.

Speaks in sentences and uses words and concepts that surprise us.

Actually tries to negotiate at a rate that surprised me and I wasn't prepared for.

All of this is probably due to her love of books. She can seriously be read 40 books a day without getting bored.

Physically she seemed to do some things early but others late.

She walked at 10 months, climbs up and down stairs. Always refused to crawl up or down them.

She can climb the monkey bars and up the slide. She can walk backwards, etc.

But she cannot jump. It is quite funny actually. She says she is jumping but does not even come close to getting any air.

She cannot dance at all. Bops up and down a bit but thats it.

She began running about 18 months, but only recently can do so without the risk of tripping on her own feet.

Her fine motor skills are not strong. She knows A LOT of signs, but cannot do very many herself, especially if they involve finger movements.

She just started being able to draw something other than a small straight line. And by that I mean she can draw a small curved line or a scribble now.

She can feed herself with a spoon, but isn't so great with a fork. She mostly likes to use her hands.

We are very fine with where she is at. Sometimes I wonder because other people that meet her seem to think she is advanced in language etc. Then I wonder if it is something we should encourage and work on her with. It is nice to see that it is not that much out of the ordinary for her to recognize the alphabet and numbers and such.

This is almost my DD in language and words and sentences and rhymes. She can recite about 20+ rhymes and completes stories (if I start a sentence she completes the rest). Except she has more trouble with colors. And she was jumping from 22 months and dances. Physically a bit more advanced maybe....

ETA: she is 25 months.

[limette]

DD1 knew all that stuff around 18 months. I'd say that is advanced. DD2 has started learning that stuff over that past couple of months. She turned 3 in April. I think that's about average.

[mckittre]

I do think you'll do better at figuring out "average" by looking at a milestone chart (which presumably has a larger and less biased sample to draw from), but this is sort of interesting to see the wide range of normal.  Also, I think a lot of it is cultural.  Most people around here don't focus on teaching toddlers academics and most don't go to daycare, so I'd say I don't know any two year olds that have all those letter/number skills.  A lot of them are pretty good little naturalists, though, and I've made sure mine has the poisonous plants memorized.

My son is 29 months

Colors:  He liked pointing out cars on the street by color, and at maybe 16 or 17 months he had pretty much all of them (he knew some color signs and could answer questions about colors, but didn't have all the spoken words yet at that age).

Shapes:  I suppose he knows all the common shapes we normally talk about, but not things like octagon that we usually don't.  Don't know when he learned them.

Letters:  He usually knows more than I think - more than half of the capital letters I think, but not any lowercase ones.  He has occasional little spurts of interest in letters, and I think the last one was months ago, so whatever he knows he's probably known since 24 months or earlier.  He mixes up ones that can rotate to be different ones (M and W, N and Z, etc...)

Numbers:  His magnets are only letters, so I don't think he recognizes any numbers.

Counting:  He can count correctly to somewhere around 15 by rote, about 5 if he's counting objects. 

ABCs:  We never sang him the song.  In the last month or two he's started listening to kids' music so I think he knows some of it now.  He likes other songs better though, and much prefers to sing "Twinkle Twinkle" which is the only song he can sing in its entirety.

Dancing:  He has never shown the slightest bit of interest in dancing, and still doesn't. 

Jumping:  Just learned this at about 28 months.

Walking backwards:  It seems like a long time that he's been able to walk backwards, but I don't quite remember.  Maybe 18 months.

Balancing:  He's been able to put on his rubber boots since they started fitting him at 26 months or so, which requires balancing on one foot.

Climbing:  We're not often around slides, but he likes to climb our lattice wall, and has very good balance walking planks, climbing on icy rocks, etc...

Fine motor:  Before he was one, he could stack 7 blocks or make a fairly tall stack of jam or creamer packets at a restaurant, but he still can't draw anything I can identify. 

His development has kind of gone in phases.  He was very into books for a long time, and learning language.  But he was talking in short sentences around 16 months and in long paragraphs since he was 24 months.  Now I think he's satisfied he can talk just fine, and seems more interested in working on physical skills, like climbing and running and wrestling and riding his balance bike. 

[Blessed_Mom]

mckittre, where is "here"? just curious.

[MrsBone]

DS knew his alphabet and could count to ten at about 27 months. He sings the songs and recognizes all the letters.

Now at 30 mo, he recognizes and can count to ten and can almost count to 20.

He still can't jump, but he can climb up a slide and sort of "dances."

He knows triangle, star, square and circle

He knows purple, pink, red, blue, orange, yellow and green but sometimes gets them confused.

The shapes and colors all really became clear to him in the past 2-3 months or so. He's done a ton of growing and learning just since his sister was born in May.

[babygirlie]

Wow, threads like this are depressing. Makes me want to crawl into the fetal position.

Dd is 27 months. She's ppd-nos (aka too young to be confirmed as autistic yet)

At what age did your kid(s) learn things like ABC's, counting, identifying numbers and letters independent of each other, colours, shapes, etc?

Not yet. dd doesn't know any words, colors, numbers, shapes etc.

At what age were they able to jump, walk backwards, climb the slide, dance, etc?

She learned to stand at 16 months and consequently learned to walk pretty fast after that.

She doesn't dance, climb slides.. but she is a good climber on adult objects like the couch or chairs. She is more interested in adult items than kid stuff

She loves to jump on her mattress.. last couple months she learned she can hop on the floor too and loves to.

She's a pro at walking backwards! Helps to avoid eye contact. She can also take a spoon not facing you. She also has concerns with her shadow following her.