Every baby develops in his or her own way. They learn a great deal in the first five years of life. By the time your child is ready to go to school, however, they should be able to speak and listen well. The following are a few milestones that babies and children generally follow. Some children will take a little longer without there being any problem.
By six months of age, most babies will watch your face and make noises back when you talk, cry in different ways when hungry, make noises to get attention and smile at you and others.
By 12 months, most will take turns making sounds, say 3 to 5 words but not clearly, understand "no" and shake his or her head, reach or point to something while making a sound, and understand simple questions or directions.
By 18 months, most will say at least 20 words point to several body parts when asked, follow directions such as "drink your juice" or "sit down please", play with toys and pretend to feed a doll or drive a car.
By two years, most use 100 or more words and consistently use short 2 to 4-word sentences (e.g., “daddy hat”, “truck go down”), follow two-part directions (e.g., “Go find your teddy bear and show it to Grandma”), have a conversation with family members or other familiar people, listen to stories and answer simple questions, and begin to add endings to words, such as running, toys. They talk in a way that people can understand their words 50 to 60 percent of the time. They also enjoy being with other children, offering toys to peers and imitating other children’s actions and words. They hold books the right way up and turn pages, “read” to stuffed animals or toys and scribble with crayons.
By three years, most will use sentences of 5 or more words, ask and understand questions (who, what, where, why), talk about things that happened in the past (e.g., a trip to grandparents’ house, a day at childcare), tell simple stories, talk to themselves and their toys while doing pretend play. Their speech can be understood by most people outside of the family, most of the time. They start to show an awareness of rhyming and of what print can be used for (e.g., in menus, lists, signs).
By 4 years, most children will use long sentences of 5 to 8 words with adult-type grammar, follow directions involving 3 or more steps (e.g., “First get some paper, then draw a picture, and last, give it to mom”), tell stories with a clear beginning, middle and end, talk to try to solve problems with adults and other children, demonstrate increasingly complex imaginative play. They will talk in a way that is understood by strangers almost all of the time. Most start to show their emergent literacy skills by generating simple rhymes (e.g., “cat-bat”) and matching some letters with their sounds (e.g., the “letter T says ‘tuh’).