Your little ADULT is growing up so fast, sounding and behaving more and more like a grown-up. There is a notable level of sophistication in his/her communication abilities. The acronym ADULT seems most fitting to describe the skills of this age group:
ADULT
A – Asks & answers. By now, your child can answer complex, two-part questions, ask for word definitions, and answer questions about function.
D – Draws. By the time your Picasso turns 5, he/she should master many of the fine motor skills pertaining to drawing and writing, being able to write letters, draw various shapes and figures that represent people, animals, and objects.
U – Understands. Understanding of words is at approximately 10,000 words.
L – Listens. Children this age love listening to stories and can answer questions about them.
T – Talks. Expressive vocabulary is somewhere between 900-2,000 words, with adult like grammar most of the time. Your child should be able to accurately tell about experiences (e.g., at school, mall, friend’s home) and use 4-8 word sentences.
Speech is mostly intelligible with minimal omissions and substitutions (although some articulation errors may still persist). Grammatical errors are primarily in irregular forms, reflexive pronouns (e.g., myself ourselves, oneself, etc.), adverbial suffixes (e.g., “ly” in quickly, “wise” is clockwise, and “ward(s)” in upwards) and comparative/superlative inflections (“er” and “est”, respectively… such as prettier and prettiest).